Fluffy soil syndrome: When tilled soil does not settle

Excerpt

Soil tillage is one of the most common management practices in any crop production system across the world. Over the centuries, tillage tools have evolved from simple tools for preparing a soft, weed-free area for easy planting to sophisticated implements for managing high levels of crop residues, facilitating the warming of frigid soils, and incorporating some forms of fertilizers. On one hand, a producer who tills can increase their potential for a high yielding crop during the upcoming growing season. On the other hand, tillage can innately induce some well-known challenges (Triplett and Dick 2008):

1. Risk of increasing wind and water erosion

2. Accelerating the oxidation of soil organic matter

3. Limiting the formation of stable soil aggregates

4. Risk of compacting the subsoil just below the depth of tillage

Many more advantages and disadvantages associated with soil tillage exist, but this list includes some of the more commonly discussed issues among agronomists in the US upper Midwest and northern Great Plains regions. However, agronomists rarely, if ever, consider the risk for tillage to create inadequate particle-to-particle contact, and therefore, poor seed-to-soil (or root-to-soil) contact.

Since the winter that bridged 2014 and 2015, much of the US upper Midwest and northern Great Plains…