The increasing weight of agricultural machinery has heightened the concerns about its effect on soil structure. The actual degree of compaction caused by agricultural traffic will be influenced by numerous factors, dependend on the actual state of the specific soil or on the machinery involved. The realization of many experiments about agricultural traffic on arable soils do not correspond to ordinary agricultural practice, their results therefore may not be of high validity. In this study, the effects of the normal operation of heavy field equipment (sugar beet combine harvester and self-driven slurry spreader) on the soil is examined. Before and after the passage of the machines, soil sampling and direct measurements took place. Topsoil, plow layer and subsoil were investigated. On each site, a high number of samples was drawn in a grid to eliminate soil heterogeneity effects.
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