Subsurface drip irrigation offers many advantages for management of water and nutrients, but its effectiveness may be limited by weather or soil conditions. Solving soil problems, such as compaction, in subsurface drip irrigation systems is understandably difficult using deep tillage. In a previous experiment with cotton under no-tillage culture and subsurface drip irrigation, there was no yield difference in either of two years for two irrigation drip line spacings (38 and 76 in.), three irrigation amounts (1/4, 3/8, and 1/2 in. per application), or between irrigated and rainfed treatments. Cotton root observations and soil strength measurements during that experiment indicated that considerable soil compaction occurred at very shallow soil depths (< 2 in.), which restricted root growth, and probably limited the efficacy of subsurface drip irrigation (12 in. deep).