ABSTRACT:
Energy requirements for agricultural tillage in the United States are 3.8 billion liters (1 billion gallons) of diesel fuel equivalent annually. The overall efficiency with which this energy is applied to the soil is about 0.25 percent, mainly because of problems in making tillage implements efficient in breaking up the soil. Because the energy inputs to other aspects of crop production, particularly in irrigated agriculture, tend to dwarf tillage energy inputs, changes in tillage energy inputs must be viewed in terms of the overall energy efficiency of the crop production system. Generally, this means that changes to make tillage more energy efficient must be those that do not reduce yields.
Footnotes
William J. Chancellor is a professor of agricultural engineering at the University of California, Davis, 95616. This article is based on a paper presented in January 1981 at the 23rd annual meeting of SCSA's California Chapter.
- Copyright 1982 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
This article requires a subscription to view the full text. If you have a subscription you may use the login form below to view the article. Access to this article can also be purchased.
Log in using your username and password
Purchase access
In this issue
Jump to section
Related Articles
Cited By...
- No citing articles found.