PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Chancellor, William J.
TI  - Energy efficiency of tillage systems
DP  - 1982 Mar 01
TA  - Journal of Soil and Water Conservation
PG  - 105--108
VI  - 37
IP  - 2
4099  - http://www.jswconline.org/content/37/2/105.short
4100  - http://www.jswconline.org/content/37/2/105.full
AB  - 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.