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How to Minimize Soil Compaction on Your Farm

Compaction facts, how to tackle it and its effect on your farm’s bottom line.

If you’re driving alongside your field before your crop comes up this spring, it will likely be very easy to see the paths your grain carts and combine drove last fall. Look a little closer and you might be able to see the lines your sprayer and even your seeder drove months before harvest.

The tracks — caused by and clear evidence of soil compaction — can in a single year cover 50 per cent or more of your field. Farmers should be concerned by the tracks criss-crossing their fields: compaction results in all kinds of negative, long-term impacts to crop growth. And, because as much as 80 per cent of compaction occurs in the first pass, more tracks mean more compaction. Though a growing crop soon masks the lines, know that compaction will affect your crop all season long.

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