Published May 19, 2006 | By admin
A Scientific Look at Why Farmers Can Improve Soil Structure
Proper Tillage
Inversion tillage has a detrimental effect of tumbling the soil which creates an explosion affect which will shatter, split, tear, and rip soil structural units apart and into less defined smaller segments (Figure 2). Yes this may bring in more O2 and CO2 into the soil for a very short period but this severe manipulation causes a quick breakdown in carbon stored and oxygen stored being released into the atmosphere. The tumbling effect breaks soil structure on different and irregular fracture planes that which are not natural.
As this occurs soil looses its inherent capacity to reform by natural gravitational forces, along with expansion, and contraction Fig. 2 Tumbling of the soil behind a moldboard plow forces with soil clay’s multi-layered structure and bonding forms. With long periods of rest when not being tilled, the soil matrix will have an opportunity to reform into specific structural units. Tillage events will continue to break down soil structure into a condition of disarray where the soil melts together into something akin to concrete-like soil structure due to excess tillage.