Controlled Traffic Research with a Wide Frame Spanner for Cotton Double-Cropped with Wheat

D.W. Reeves, C.B. Elkins, H.H. Rogers, J.B. Powell, and S.A. Prior


 
ABSTRACT

The advent of the tramline system in cereal production and extrapolation of research results using modified tractors have generated interest in the use of wide-span vehicles (spanners or gantries) for researching soil compaction problems. A field study was initiated in 1987 on a compactible Typic Hapludult with a well developed tillage pan to study the effects of traffic and tillage systems on soil properties and crop performance in a wheat-cotton double-crop system. A wide frame tractive vehicle (WFTV) that allows for 20-ft. wide, untrafficked research plots was utilized to double-crop cotton "McNair 2201, with wheat "Coker 9733". The experimental design was a split-plot with 4 replications. Main plots were: 1) Conventionally trafficked and 2) Zero-traffic. Subplots were tillage systems for cotton: 1) Complete surface tillage without subsoiling, 2) Complete surface tillage and annual in-row subsoiling (16-inch depth), 3) Complete surface tillage with one-time only complete disruption of tillage pan, and 4) No surface tillage but planted with in-row subsoiling (strip-tillage). Residual effects of cotton tillage were determined for wheat. Late planting limited seed cotton yields in 1987 and 1988. Neither traffic nor tillage had an effect on seed cotton yield in 1987 (average 896 lb/A). There was a significant traffic X tillage interaction on wheat grain yield and seed cotton yield in 1988. Subsoiling resulted in an average wheat yield of 79 bu/A, a 19% increase over not subsoiling, in zerotraffic plots. In trafficked plots, subsoiling resulted in an average grain yield of 54 bu/A, a 12% reduction from not subsoiling. In-row subsoiling resulted in maximum seed cotton yield (1580 lb/A) in zero traffic plots and lowest yield (1140 lb/A) in trafficked plots. With subsoiling, zero traffic promoted earliness. Strip-tillage in trafficked plots delayed maturity. Preliminary results, if repeatable in the long term, indicate that controlled traffic may be beneficial in double-cropping cotton, but that other systems, e.g., strip-tillage, would be feasible in a monocrop system with a longer growing season.



Reprinted from Proceedings: 1989 Beltwide Cotton Research Conferences pp. 519 - 522
©National Cotton Council, Memphis TN

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Document last modified Sunday, Dec 6 1998