Engineering Your Farm
Engineering Your Farm
Tires and Technology: Talking about Soil Compaction Management
Tony Mensing and Kapil Arora break down the science behind soil compaction, explaining how equipment adjustments and technology can help manage compaction. They discuss the physical process of soil compaction and its impacts for ag crop production and share practical steps farmers can take to protect soil structure.
Hello, and welcome to the Engineering Your Farm podcast. This podcast is produced by the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach field agricultural engineering team. Welcome back to another episode of the EngineeringYour Farm podcast. I'm Tony Mensing, agricultural engineer with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach in southwest Iowa, and today I'm very happy to have Dr. Kapil Arora, a colleague of mine, also an agricultural engineer with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach as my guest on the show. Welcome Kapil, thanks for being here today.
Kapil Arora:Hey Tony, thanks for having me on here today.
Tony Mensing:Yeah, absolutely. If you want to go ahead and give a little more introduction of your background for the listeners, that'd be great.
Kapil Arora:Yeah, Tony, I've been in extension now for 23 years, I've been serving in the role of the extension engineer for Central Iowa for all these years, and have been covering about 17 to 20 counties in central Iowa. And as you know, we are short few staff. So typically that count is higher. Have been involved in farmland drainage, composting, manure management, and today we are here to talk about soil compaction, which happens to be an integral part of all farm machinery, whether you're dealing with manure issues or you're dealing with planting and tillage and and all those things. I do want to point out that our research lead for soil compaction is actually Dr. Mehari Tekeste. He is associate professor in agricultural engineering here, and he's also the director for soil machine dynamics lab here at Iowa State University. He does work with different tracks and tires and testing in his lab, and has been, has been producing some work on that part.
Tony Mensing:Sure. So you have a varied background, as you described a little bit, but have some resource knowledge base in the compaction arena, and Dr. Tekeste is the lead in that lab space. But we'll have a little kind of an overview discussion today, and hopefully maybe follow up in some later episodes with some more in depth in some of these topic areas that we get dialed in on a little bit today. So
Kapil Arora:Yeah, and that'll be more up the alley for Dr Tekeste to answer some of those in depth, detailed scientific questions. As as you said, you are also in a similar role as me. So we are more rounded, more more broad based.
Tony Mensing:Sure, yeah, we get to do a little bit of a lot of different things, and there are certainly folks that are more able to dedicate their time to a particular area. So yeah, we'll kind of cover some general things on compaction today, and like I said, hopefully follow up in a later episode with some more detailed pieces down, a down a rabbit hole, maybe, so to speak, in another area or two, but maybe just kick off today. I think a lot of people probably have a basic understanding, but physically, what is happening? What's happening when we have a compaction issue? What happened in the soil profile?
Kapil Arora:Right? So in very simple terms, compaction is soil particles getting pushed together.
Tony Mensing:Okay.
Kapil Arora:In a uncompacted soil, there is space in between these particles and aggregates, and we call it the pore space. This pore space helps to hold water in it, and also aerates the soil and also allows the roots to develop through it. But when you have heavy equipment going over it under unfavorable conditions, we have more pressure on the soil, and can come from even lighter equipment if they are not appropriately configured. In that case, that load, or the pressure on the soil that's exerted downwards actually pushes the soil particles together.
Tony Mensing:Sure.
Kapil Arora:And if the piece of equipment, let's say it's a tractor, and it's pulling an implement behind it, that traction force that's needed by the tractor increases because it's now also having to have power for the implement to be able to do the work. Let's say it's a vertical till tool toolbar, or we are just pulling a planter behind the tractor. In both cases, there are points that are in contact with the soil, and they are going to need some draw bar power, which the tractor has to be able to provide, but the tractor is bringing that into play with the traction it's getting from the soil surface itself. So as that force gets applied on the soil, that pressure basically pushes the particles together.
Tony Mensing:Sure. So maybe let me recap, and you point out if I missed something in here, but soil profile as we think about it in in this part of the world where we're trying to talk through production ag growing crops in Iowa. Here, soil profile is primarily made up of the soil particles themselves, and then air and water. And the air and water are in that pore space, as you described, right? So if we compact that soil, we're reducing the amount of that pore space that's available to hold the air in water.
Kapil Arora:Very much so. And one way to look at it would be, if you were to take a core that's one foot deep and put it in a let's say we take out a rectangular box, so as we see what that profile is, it's one foot wide by one foot long, and then one foot deep, and we can put it in a Plexiglas.
Tony Mensing:Sure. We're looking at basically one cubic foot.
Kapil Arora:One cubic foot of the soil, but we are able to put it in a clear plastic probe container, so we can see it on the side.
Tony Mensing:Sure.
Kapil Arora:And you can put water on it, and you'll see the soil is able to hold it. It's holding that water in the pore space.
Tony Mensing:Right.
Kapil Arora:Now, once you bring equipment over it and exert forces on it, you'll see the same space getting pushed down. And now that one cubic foot of soil, even though we started out with one cubic foot, you'll see it has compressed down on the top surface.
Tony Mensing:Sure.
Kapil Arora:It's not the same height, even though it's the same width and length.
Tony Mensing:Sure.
Kapil Arora:But it's not the same height. Now the volume has reduced. Well, physically, we haven't taken any soil out of that one cubic foot box.
Tony Mensing:Right.
Kapil Arora:So it's that pore space that actually is reduced because soil is giving under the weight it's getting subjected to.
Tony Mensing:Sure, it doesn't have the ability to withstand that force that's holding the equipment up vertically. Plus, as you were trying to point out there the tractors or the machines themselves, have to apply that tractive effort, that tractive force, to be able to pull the implement behind. So not only is it supporting the load vertically, it's also supporting that tractive load. So we're basically compressing, squeezing that soil to be able to get that equal and opposite reaction, to be able to pull the implement plus hold it upright.
Kapil Arora:Yeah, very much so. And that's what that whole profile is. It's built of sand, silt and clay particles, but it's got pore space in it.
Tony Mensing:Sure.
Kapil Arora:And you can imagine in your mind, some particles are by itself, and others are aggregated together.
Tony Mensing:Right. There's big spaces and small spaces, and the reason we care about those spaces are, like we mentioned already, air and water are what occupy those spaces when we have a pore space in that soil, and we need both of those for crop production,
Kapil Arora:Absolutely, Tony. You're 100% correct that that piece itself is what makes plants grow, because that pore space holds the water. When we apply fertilizers in the field, the fertilizers go into the soil particles and get absorbed if they are attached with the soil particles. But when rain happens, the fertilizer dissolves into the water, which is again in those pore spaces. And the roots are actually sucking up the water that's freely available in that pore space, and takes it up. So that pore space is a very important thing,
Tony Mensing:Sure, and you'll soon get over my head on some of the plant physiology and some of those things, but the big picture take home from this is that we need those pore spaces to be able to supply air and water for the plants to do What we're asking them to do, right?
Kapil Arora:Yeah, very much so and plants, basically, all the nutrition they are picking up from the soil comes through the root, through the soil water that's in those pore spaces. The water dissolves the fertilizer, nutrients, whatever other chemicals and. And the plants are able to suck it up through the root system, and that pore space, therefore, is an important thing for the plants to grow. But at the same time, if those pore spaces are pushed together and there is restriction there, it does impact the root development as well, because now the roots have to work harder to push those particles apart to make space for the root growth itself.
Tony Mensing:There's more resistance to them being able to grow through that soil profile.
Kapil Arora:Yes, sure you're absolutely right. So that plays hand in hand. One, one side is it reduces the pore volume for the water and nutrients to not be there. But then at the same time, the soil becomes resistive to the root development itself. One, it's not the plants not being able to take up enough nutrients, but then at the same time, physically to be able to grow it, the roots are being met with resistance, and I'm also, again, not a crop physiologist by any means. But what I've learned is the roots, if they are unable to penetrate through that resistance, they'll stop growing, and they'll go in other directions, trying to grow wherever the resistance is.
Tony Mensing:Sure, same thing I do, right path of least resistance. That's where we want to go. So I think, kind of, from a from an overview standpoint, compaction is reducing those pore spaces. We care about that because we need those pore spaces for the plants to be able to do what we're asking them to do. And then, I guess is there is it? Is it possible to not have compaction?
Kapil Arora:I don't think it's not possible. I think at given at any moisture condition, the vertical force from the tractor and the tractive force when the tractor has an implement attached with it in our production systems here in the upper Midwest, and especially here in Iowa, I don't think we will ever be in a zero compaction situation, because we will always have that weight. The idea would be, can we minimize it?
Tony Mensing:We're trying to manage it, right? Yeah, even if I go for a walk out there, I'm exerting more than my share, probably, but some force on that soil to support myself as I walk across that right? We're using equipment that's different than it was 40 or 50 years ago, and in massive incremental changes, I think we've gone from smaller to larger from that standpoint. We're doing some things to still try and manage that compaction problem that we could potentially have. Before I lose sight of this piece, I 100% agree with you. We're not going to have a point in time where we can do what we're doing now, from production ag standpoint, and not have a compactive effort that's getting applied to the soil. We can do some things to manage that. What's one of the biggest key players in what kind of detrimental impact we can do for compaction. So we've had drastically different years. The last couple of years, we had fairly high level of moisture. This past year, we've had some fairly dry years. How does that play into the compaction picture?
Kapil Arora:Yeah, so moisture plays a big role. When equipment is out in the field, the soil responds differently, because it's now somewhat more compressible. It's somewhat more I should say, easier to move. Those particles are easier to move.
Tony Mensing:There's less friction between the particles with some moisture than when they're really dry.
Kapil Arora:Dry, so the water kind of acts as a lubricant. And one way of imagining that would be is if you go up for a walk out in the lawn or out on the grass, and if it is wet, if you walk gently, you'll still see that you're pushing down with your feet and your footprints are there. But now, if you try to move faster or run across it, you'll actually dig in deeper, and you leave a deeper footprint on the same space. It's that point that you brought out, there's less friction, and the water basically acts as a lubricant in those situations. We have certain amount of work that needs to be done at planting and then also at harvest. That workload needs to get done in a timely fashion, otherwise we are losing degree days for planting. We can't get the planting done in time. And then on the back end, when we are doing harvest, it's the same situation again. We need to get the harvest done in a timely manner. Otherwise you start losing now crop that's standing in the field, and you got to get the money in the bank, so get the harvest completed, all of it, and that, that is what brings the money to the farm. So we are forced with having to do operations at times and sometimes the conditions may not be the best.
Tony Mensing:Yeah, I want to work on the perfect day every time you need to, but reality does not allow for that, right?
Kapil Arora:Yes, and even though our farmers here working in the Upper Midwest are doing their best, sometimes they try to work harder and longer just because they don't want to be in those weather conditions.
Tony Mensing:We don't know what is gonna come around the corner next week, right?
Kapil Arora:And I've heard of people putting in 18 hour days behind the steering wheel just to get get things done in a timely fashion. And even even after our best efforts, our conditions are not sometimes the ideal, and we do end up being in the field when ideally we may not want to be.
Tony Mensing:Sure. So we have some technologies available to help mitigate the issue that we're discussing here. Right? So the best thing and correct me if I'm wrong, but the best thing we can do to fight compaction is to try and avoid it. Right? That's easier than trying to fix it after the fact.
Kapil Arora:That is the bottom line. We have had folks here think about that freeze and thaw cycles will pretty much take away all the compaction. That's not 100% accurate. It does depend on how deep the compaction has gone, and if it is deep. Now you have to imagine how the freeze thawing happens.
Tony Mensing:We don't get a lot of cyclical action in that freeze thaw at a deeper depth.
Kapil Arora:At a deeper, deeper depth.
Tony Mensing:We also would be dependent on moisture, right? So freeze thaw, where that helps mitigate, or helps kind of try to deal with some of the compaction that we have caused, we get better results from that when the water in that soil profile is expanding and breaking apart those particles, right? So we have a really dry soil that doesn't have enough water in it to expand and make that freeze thaw action help is that there's a difference in moisture level and results we might get from freeze thaw, let alone how many cycles we get over the winter.
Kapil Arora:Yeah, so we can discuss that little bit more in detail. But to your earlier question, minimizing and avoiding compaction is the best possible thing. And I was trying to say, if you think freeze and thaw is going to help you, that may not always be the case, and may not get the benefit out of it. Now, the reason why we don't get the benefit out of freeze and toss cycles is just as we were talking about deep compaction, basically, you get down into 20 plus inches. Then you are talking about the freezing during winter has to freeze that deep to be able to freeze and create a difference, there has to be water in the pores, and that water has to become ice. Because only when water becomes ice does its volume increase, and when that volume increases, only then it actually is able to push the soil particles apart, or the aggregates apart. That force happens at a microscopic level, but it's there because ice has bigger molecules than manure, and that has to happen cyclically, repeatedly and to be able to get that effect of compaction negated. So trying to get deep compaction to mitigate out with just freeze and thaw does not really work out in our favor, because you can imagine you need the soil profile full of water all the way down there, and then a deep freeze that freezes it, and then goes away, and then comes back again, and then goes away and then comes back again. So I think chances of getting that cyclical freeze and thaw happening in the. Upper 12 inches is a greater likelihood than getting down into the two feet and deeper depths.
Tony Mensing:Sure. So it's not that the freeze thaw action doesn't help with the problems that get created. It's more a matter of that we don't get that freeze thaw cyclical action at that whole soil profile. And as we've gotten larger equipment, we probably are trending towards a deeper compaction level. Am I? Is that fair to say?
Kapil Arora:I would say we have gone down the path of larger equipment for the reason of having shorter windows at both planting and harvest to get the work done.
Tony Mensing:Right.
Kapil Arora:And to be able to get work done quicker. We have gone to bigger equipment. Now the question is, with bigger equipment, yes, we are increasing the weight, but our our footprints, or the load, or, I should say, even pressure on the soil. How is that being managed on that equipment? If the footprint is still small and the tires are still smaller and the equipment weight has increased, now we have increased the load over the same area on which the contact is with the tires or the tracks, whichever way you are working.
Tony Mensing:We're putting up a higher pressure on that area. So it's not just dependent on the weight or the size of the equipment. We also need to account for the footprint or the area that we're spreading that weight over.
Kapil Arora:Yes,
Tony Mensing:Sure. Okay, so we want to try to avoid compaction. We know that that's not going to be possible every time we can try to work within what Mother Nature gives us, as far as soil moisture, but knowing that we are up against a production time clock, that's not always as easy as it sounds, either, what technologies are available to help us with that pressure or the footprint, or dealing with trying to minimize, mitigate what we might be up against with these larger machines.
Kapil Arora:So especially on the tires side, we have what is being referred as, CTIS, okay. This is a new technology. Europeans have been using it for some time. A]
Tony Mensing:And CTIS what? What does that stand for again?
Kapil Arora:It's central tire inflation system, okay, you can buy this technology and mount it on a tractor. If the tractor does not have it, or you can mount it on the implement. And what, what it is basically saying is, it's an inflation system But that implies that your tires are deflated. So the the way this technology works is, is that once you are in the field, if you have the right kind of tires, you can deflate them, go down to a lower PSI within the tire. By deflating it, you will actually increase the width of the tire that's in contact with the soil. You'll also increase the length, because now the tires will be sitting lower. And essentially what you have done is that you have increased your cross sectional area of contact and the same load that the tractor or the tractor plus the implement was producing is now spread over a wider area. I should say, a larger area, a larger area, okay, right? And that effectively is reducing the pounds per square inch.
Tony Mensing:The pressure of force applied to that soil.
Kapil Arora:The pressure applied to that area is now lower. So by doing that, you are spreading the load on a bigger area, therefore having less pounds per square inch or less pressure. And that helps in keeping the compaction to lower than if you were fully inflated, because under fully inflated conditions, you'll be not as wide, because now the tire will be sitting straight up and on the length and the direction of the travel, the tire will not be in contact with as much soil. So your total contact area would be lower, which, in other words, means, now the load is spread over a smaller footprint, and it's a higher soil pressure.
Tony Mensing:Sure. So you you mentioned we need the right kind of type. Tires for that there's, there are several different options there. The the big piece would be a radial type tire of some sort, rather than a bias type plier. And as far as the lower inflation pressure goes, again, a big picture view of this, managing that tire pressure is not something new. I remember 30 years ago reading the ag magazines where people are talking about you need to properly manage your tire pressure, right? So one key point that you brought up was, as we get to the field, so tell me a little bit more about why that's a deciding factor. Why do I not just deflate my tires to the field level when I'm getting ready to leave home?
Kapil Arora:I think you need to be DOD compliant to be out on the roads. And you also need to make sure that the friction factors on the asphalt and pavement are going to be different. And on gravel, if you are on the gravel, roads are going to be different than what you have out in the field.
Tony Mensing:So we're also probably traveling at a road type speed versus in field speed, right?
Kapil Arora:So that's where I was headed, exactly. So with those different friction factors, now your speed factor is also there, as you just pointed out, out on the road, you might be in the road gear and going at a faster speed, miles per hour, or once you are in the field, you may be at seven or nine miles per hour at the most. So there's a difference in the drive speeds, and you need the tires to be safe and not be any issues coming up from tire performance under high speeds out on the road.
Tony Mensing:Sure, we're asking two pretty significantly different tasks from those tires, right? So high speed, high load at transport, is a lot different than a low speed and maybe even variable load. So if I think about some implements have a high draw bar weight at transport, maybe like a front fold planter, the weight being transferred from that implement to the back axle of a tractor may be a lot different from road travel to in field, so we might be changing not just our speed but also our loading.
Kapil Arora:You're absolutely right. So every implement is different. The way they are configured is different. You talk about tractor and implement, now you talk about a combine. Combine is front heavy, and it's got lot of load up front, then on the rear tires.
Tony Mensing:And it changes a lot.
Kapil Arora:And it changes so that that plays a role into it. So with this CTIS system that is out there in the market now, there's a couple companies here in central Iowa that I know of that sell this system that can be mounted on a on an implement or a tractor that does not have it already in it. You can deflate tires very quickly. Inflation does take little bit of time, but it's a function of how big a compressor and how big a compressor cylinder do you have already mounted with the system.
Tony Mensing:And how big a tire we're trying to inflate.
Kapil Arora:And how big a tire we are trying to inflate, yes. Combine tires will be different than a manure tank tires. So those, those would be differences, definitely. To consider how big a system do you need for which implement? Some of the newer tractors from John Deere and Fendt I know of are already coming. There are, there are models available that have a CTIS system already pre-installed on them. So you just have to look for which model that is and and go explore that out a little bit more.
Tony Mensing:Sure, and essentially, we're talking about the same thing, whether it's something that you would add to a piece of equipment you already have, or if it's one of those two manufacturers or somebody else that offers it as a factory option, or something. We're still just talking about a way to be able to onboard of that machine inflate and deflate the tires as we're working, or as we're switching from road to field mode, or maybe as we're changing our loading from a full manure slurry tank to an empty manure slurry tank.
Kapil Arora:Yeah, all of those conditions apply. And then once you are done in the field, and you're coming back out on the road again, if you're hauling that equipment, piece of equipment, or if you're just tracting a empty manure tank, again, you got to get road worthy and be able to handle the forces under higher drive speeds. Yeah, so those, those things come into play right away.
Tony Mensing:And how do I know where I should be at for an inflation pressure? Something that I think about in this space is, do people truly know what their axle load is on those pieces of equipment? And then, if we do, how do we know where we should be looking to be? As far as inflation pressure, there's probably several different things that may affect that tire construction, so tire manufacturer recommendations and lots of other pieces. Give me your take on that, Kapil.
Kapil Arora:So you may have already answered that question earlier, but it's good to ask it in this fashion. I think you mentioned looking up equipment catalogs and looking up the online when these days you have information available online from different manufacturers as well. So you can look up on the tires itself as to what are the inflation pressures for different drive speeds and loadings, okay? I think that's what you were asking.
Tony Mensing:Yeah, and when we're thinking about compaction, loading and those type of things, duals are something that come to mind a lot of times. So you'll see, if you look in those tables, I believe that just because we double the amount of tires does not mean that we get to half the inflation pressure or that it doubles the loading capacity, right? So there's, there's some give and take for having four tires on the same axle versus two tires we don't it's not necessarily just a linear relationship of how much more load those can absorb.
Kapil Arora:Putting two more track tire tractors on the same axle also increases the weight on those axles. So yeah, you're absolutely right. It's not a linear relationship that you can just now have twice as much load because now you have four, four tires on the same axle. So you do need to look up for those tires specifically, as you mentioned, are they radial ply or bias ply? And if they are radial ply, what are their ratings and what is the minimum inflation pressure they can be deflated down to to be able to do the work that that you are looking for. You don't want to over deflate them and get down to real low pressures, because then you will hurt the tire, and you can actually create a bigger problem that your tire is now damaged and then you don't want to go down that path. So So you absolutely do need to know what your operating limits are before you actually go into this domain of inflating deflating. This is not just telling your hired help to go deflate the tire. It needs to be very clear and very precise as to we are going to go down to 10 PSI or 12 PSI on the tire pressure, not any lower.
Tony Mensing:Right, and that specific to what machine, what application, what loading that your whatever value that's going to be. But a visual assessment of what that tire looks like is not a good way to decide what you should do, right? We need to know probably what load we actually are going to have, which, I'm not sure that we always have a good handle on that, but load and then tire specific, what our limits are for where we can work in that range. And some of the tire manufacturers have some proprietary tire technologies that that are their own specific and then there are some categories that are tires categorized in these bunches across multiple manufacturers. So really, it's not something that you nor I could sit here and say, well, for a grain cart with this size tire, it should be at x amount of inflation when it's fully loaded.
Kapil Arora:You're very right, Tony, and that's the piece you have explained better than what I was explaining it as. So understand what you're trying to do, understand the loading you're going to be loading that equipment to or, if it is a grain cart, how fully going to make it and understand all that before you actually decide to do any deflation.
Tony Mensing:And the safe answer, what I feel like I have seen maybe out in the countryside, is people over inflate because we don't want to have the problems that you can have from the under inflation. So it feels like maybe the if people are going to error one side or the other, we visually assess and are probably more times than not, overinflated, and especially if we're not changing those tire pressures from road transport to infield, if we're decreasing that speed or decreasing that load, we want to be able to, as you said, travel safely down the road. So if we're picking one or the other, we're probably not, either not right at one or not right at both, and generally, probably set up to be higher pressure than needed for that field work.
Kapil Arora:Definitely, there's a learning curve here, and we do need to make sure that we start out small. We gain experience with one system, understand the limitations of the system and how it works and what what points we need to stop at in that operation, because now the operation has to have a few pauses in between to deflate, and then back inflate, and then, if need, deflate again. And then and get a good understanding of that and get a good sense of comfort in doing it, before you decide that you're going to put this on every piece of equipment. I would, I would caution, because you need to have that experience, and you need to learn about it. So one, we stay safe on the road. And two, when we are in the field, we are not damaging those tires, because we still want our tires to work, and radial tires are not cheap
Tony Mensing:We want to make the most of our investment there too, right?
Kapil Arora:Yes, absolutely, yes.
Tony Mensing:And I guess kind of to go along with that there are probably for every operation, some some specific applications that may be a higher impact to look at being able to have a more significant impact trying to mitigate that compaction, right? So like I said, one that comes to my mind is, particularly in the fall, we have high loading from grain carts or moving the crop off the field. And then in the spring, like I mentioned, those center for front fold planters, some applications where we have a really large disparity from what we're asking of those tires, from the road transport mode to the field mode. So might be able to pick out a couple operations that are able to they might have a bigger piece of the pie as far as the compaction damage that we might be doing.
Kapil Arora:Yeah. So definitely, where we have, especially those things, where we have higher loading or higher pressure on the soil, those would be the biggest impact, if we are able to reduce the pressure on those. Again, we were talking about this earlier freeze. Thaw doesn't help with deep compaction, and those bigger pieces of equipment may very well be the ones creating deep compaction. So if we can help and minimize and keep compaction shallower, freeze thaw will help. Many people have seen benefit from tillage as well. You could do tillage, but tillage points only go so deep. If you try to go deeper, then you yourself need more tractive force for that tractor to be able to.
Tony Mensing:It can be a double edged sword, right, and you can actually do some compactive harm if we're operating in conditions that aren't conducive to break up those soil particles if we don't have the right moisture level, we could actually be doing more damage than we're doing good.
Kapil Arora:And then I've heard folks use cover crops as well to help with some of the compaction, all of these practices are there to help mitigate what compaction that would have happened. But again, if we can keep compaction shallower, and this technology of CTIS definitely looks like the one that can help.
Tony Mensing:It makes it possible to do what we've known for years we should do, which is manage our tire pressure, right? So it's it's another tool that allows us to do the things that people like you have been telling folks they need to pay attention to for a long time. It just hasn't been nearly as convenient as it might be with some of these systems to make that happen in the past.
Kapil Arora:Right. And previously, not having a mounted system and having air available at the shop created an issue, because now, if you are farming a field that's two miles down the road and you don't have a shop there, you just have a field there, or you're just renting it, it created a logistics issue of, how do I manage my tire pressure, and how do I do this? And then when I get done, then somebody has to bring a compressor on a truck, pickup truck, and wait there and do it. And basically, folks have taken that system that was fixed in the shop or was on a pickup truck and mounted it directly onto the tractor or the implement and given us the controls in the cab to be able to push buttons from. On the cab itself and be able to do it.
Tony Mensing:Sure, and you're doing the inflation and deflation on the go, basically, right? So not only do you have the system on the machine itself, but it's not like we have to stop necessarily and get out to make that system work. We can be traveling as it's doing its job to you, as long as we're cognizant of making sure that we allow it enough time to get to the point that we need it to be to operate. Right?
Kapil Arora:Yes, if you are careful and have accounted for all the variables, you could do it on the go, and
Tony Mensing:that'd be something maybe to discuss with the equipment supplier that you would look at for one of these CTIS systems.
Kapil Arora:But definitely I'm not the expert on CTIS system. I do know how the system works and operates, and yes, you should discuss all those options with the provider, with the manufacturer of the CTIS system as to what's the best way to operate them if you are not wanting to stop or pause at all?
Tony Mensing:Sure, and there's lots of questions to learn answers to, hopefully, at some point, the deep compaction is something that I think maybe we have some more questions than we maybe even have answers on right now, for people that want to have one of these type of systems, or look at this as an option to help them mitigate compaction, lots of tire options, multiple CTIS suppliers, lots of different pieces. But I guess where I kind of come back to is it's not necessarily new for people to know how important tire inflation pressure is, but again, this allows you to be able to manage that a lot better than we've been able to in the past, to physically be able to manage it, versus having to pick a compromise somewhere between I really want to be here for my field work and I need to be here for my road transport or whatever the whatever the bookends are on that we can work for the situation that we have at hand instead of trying to compromise between two or three different levels.
Kapil Arora:Yeah, and I think as you mentioned, tire companies have been publishing those data for however they do their tire testing, and they understand from their manufacturing what kind of loads those track tires can handle. So the data is available from the tire manufacturers, and if you're buying it through a dealer, you can very easily request that information, and they can provide you with with the tables, and you should be able to go off of those tables,
Tony Mensing:Sure, yeah. Well, tons of more in depth conversation that I think that we could have, or even bring in some other folks to discuss further on this topic that tire technologies themselves. Lots to maybe know and understand about compaction that we don't necessarily even know today. Some of the other potential mitigation practices, cover crops, like you mentioned, there are lots of questions and some answers, but some more discussion that we could have on that. But I think, I think for today, you've done a really great job of covering kind of the basic overview of what compaction is, why we need to care about it, some potential ways to mitigate it, knowing that we're not going to be able to eliminate compaction wholesale. And I guess I would welcome a last comment or two, and then I think we'll probably wrap up for today save
Kapil Arora:for another episode. I think if we invent implements that are operated by helicopters so we have no soil contact, maybe that will be a situation where, where we may not have any compaction, or very well, even in that you still have the implement on the ground.
Tony Mensing:as long as we have some kind of equipment soil interaction, we probably have potential for compaction.
Kapil Arora:I would agree with that.
Tony Mensing:Yeah, well, thanks again for for participating on the podcast with me today, Kapil, and again, I'm Tony Mensing field agricultural engineer with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. And to the listeners, thanks for tuning in to this episode, and if you have follow up questions or comments, feel free to reach out to anyone on the ISU Extension Outreach ag engineering team for some further discussion or further insight on compaction. You can search the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach store for publication 3180, which is Understanding and Managing Soil Compaction, and hope to have you back on another episode of Engineering Your Farm at a later date. Thank you. This institution is an equal opportunity provider. For the full non discrimination statement or accommodation inquiries, go to www.extension.iastate.edu/legal.