Investigation of soil compaction due to soil moisture and mechanical factors of conventional agricultural tractors in a type of clay

In this applied experiment, in order to investigate the effect of conventional agricultural tractors on soil density, the effect of tractor traffic at two levels (one and three passes) at different soil moisture levels at three levels (plastic limit, 0.8 and 0.6 plastic limit) With two low and medium speeds of tractor (3 and 4.5 km / h), by measuring the density indices including bulk density and soil cone index in a type of clay in Kashmar city was performed. Experiments using Messi Ferguson 285 tractor as a factorial experiment in a randomized complete block design with three repetitions and the results were analyzed at three different soil depths (0-10, 10-20, 20-30) cm. The results showed that the soil moisture and tractor traffic treatments in the first and second depths had a significant difference on the value of the cone index. Moisture treatment only at a depth of 10-20 cm in the soil had a significant effect on the bulk density of the soil. Also, the highest increase in density occurs at a depth of 10-15 cm, and at depths lower than 20 cm, due to the lightness of the tractor, no significant changes in the amount of density.The results show that the soil at the plastic limit moisture has the highest response to compaction.