Mass reduction of standing and flat crop residues by selected tillage implements
1995
Wagner, L.E. | Nelson, R.G.
Field data were collected to determine the mass reduction of standing residue by selected tillage operations and to develop a set of coefficients that could represent changes in mass between standing, flat, and buried residue pools caused by those tillage operations. Tillage implements used in this study were tandem-disk harrows, chisel plows, and wide-sweep plows. A range of pre-tillage corn and wheat residue conditions were studied, with standing and flat residue pools sampled separately before and after each tillage operation. The data show that 7% of standing corn residue was flattened with a wide-sweep plow, 89 to 100% with tandem-disk harrows, 29% with a straight-shank chisel plow, and 76% with a twisted-point chisel plow. Wheat residue data indicated that 53 to 55% of the standing residue was flattened with the wide-sweep plows, 86% for a wide-sweep plow outfitted with a rolling harrow treader attachment, and 86 to 95% for the tandem-disk harrows. The two straight-shanked chisel plows, one outfitted with a drag harrow attachment using coil-spring wire teeth and one without an attachment, flattened 90% and 22% of the standing wheat residue, respectively. A set of transfer equations also was developed to represent changes in mass between standing,flat, and buried residue pools from tillage operations. Only three coefficients (flattening, burial, and surfacing) are necessary to describe the transfer of mass from one residue pool to another. Coefficient values, determined via a constrained optimization procedure, are presented for each tillage implement on both corn and wheat residues.
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