ABSTRACT

For those soils that require deep tillage to alleviate soil compaction, subsoiling can be an expensive and time-consuming tillage event. Alternative tillage methods are needed which conserve natural resources without sacrificing cotton yields. An experiment was conducted in a field in Southern Alabama prone to soil compaction for three years to evaluate whether the concept of site-specific tillage (tilling just deep enough to eliminate the hardpan layer) would reduce tillage energy requirements and/or reduce cotton yields. Average cotton yields over this three-year period showed that site-specific tillage produced yields equivalent to those produced by the uniform deep tillage treatment while requiring 27% less tillage power.