The first factory made tractor on our farm was a 23 horse power 2N Ford, bought in 1948. It came with a two furrow mounted plow.
In 1950, dad wanted a little loader for the front of the tractor, but was talked into trading the little Ford for a new TEA 20 Ferguson that the loader was already mounted on. The Ferguson had 28 horse power instead of 23 in the Ford and four gears instead of three in the Ford. The Ferguson came with a three furrow plow instead of the two furrow on the Ford. This little Ferguson and the three furrow plow did all the tillage on our farm, then about 300 acres in sand, loam and clay ground for the next 10 years. Today, many farms use tractors with 200 or 300 horse power and even the smaller farms have an 80 horse power tractor. Why is the soil on the same farms so much harder to work today?
During WW2, the air-plane was the most advanced tool armies had in their toolbox. Planes became useless unless there were airports to land on. A major tactic of every army was to bomb and make the enemy airports unusable.
Even in Canada where the war never got to hundreds of emergency landing strips were developed all across the country. There was one built across our farm and two neighbouring farms. The line fences between our farm and the neighbour on each side was taken out and the old fence rows were leveled to prepare for a half mile runway. Since most winds blew either east or west, the runway ran east-west on top of a hill where there were no trees close by.
Most planes used in WW2 were light planes and didn’t require a paved runway. On our farm the ground was high and mostly light loam which didn’t need drainage. The land was tilled and leveled to leave a half mile of smooth runway. Although it was not paved, the soil was tightened up by applying dolomitic lime and urea form of nitrogen. When enough of this calcium-magnesium-nitrogen mix was worked into the top six inches of soil and the soil packed with a very heavy roller used for packing roads, the landing strip was sufficiently hard enough to accept light aircraft and bombers. This particular emergency landing strip was initiated thanks to a couple of local boys that flew for our air-force during WW2. For at least 30 years after the little emergency air strip was abandoned, the land where it was did not grow very good crops and was very hard to till. After many years of adjusting the fertility of the land where the landing strip was the excessive magnesium was depleted or balanced by increasing the calcium saturation.
For more than 40 years, sponsors of tractor and truck pulls have tightened up their pull tracks to make them hard and more resistant to being dug up by the competitors using similar methods. A clay track makes it even tougher and competitors can get a better bite on the track with high horsepower machines.
When the base saturation of soil elements become out of balance by years of incorrect selection or over use of fertilizer, soil becomes much harder to till. This imbalance combined with an accumulation of residual pesticides and herbicides will also decrease the organisms in the soil which also leads to a hardening of the soil and an ever increasing problem of hard pan which many farmers have encountered.
The use of a penetrometer which measures soil density will give a reading of how compacted or out of balance soil is. Although penetrometers are too expensive for some people to buy, use once or twice and then have gather dust in the office, a quarter inch steel rod with a “t” handle welded to the top can be used as a quick measure to check to find out how compacted a soil is. A quick example is to take the penetrometer or steel rod to a fence row that has not been tramped, tilled, sprayed, or fertilized and try pushing the tool into the ground a foot or more. Then take a couple steps into the field and check if it is harder to push the probe in there.
Even sandy soils which many farmers believe cannot be compacted can definitely be compacted by traffic with heavy equipment such as large manure spreaders, grain buggies, grain wagons, forage wagons or trucks. Some of today’s large combines can carry as much as 300 bushels of grain in their tank before dumping. That can be more than eight tons of grain without the weight of the empty combine.
If you look at a field of corn and observe the height of the crop where the equipment, trucks, wagons, etc. enter the field, you will notice that the crop is lower than the rest of the field. Many of the large tractors, combines, grain buggies, and manure tankers now have big flotation tires, dual wheels, triple wheels, or rubber tracks to better distribute the weight and reduce soil compaction.
Soil specialists, soil botanists, and farmers are all working to improve soil conditions for our future farmers to provide us with nutritious and affordable food.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com
