The Changes in the Physical Properties of Soil with Tillage Methods (I)

In the study, the cone index, the cohesion and the internal resistant angle of soil were measured before and after tillage in order to suggest relative improvement in soil properties. The tillage methods tested in the study were five combinations of plow and rotary tillage operation and the experiments were performed on five selected test fields. The maximum tillage depth was 20 cm under the ground. The CIs for all the tillage operations were improved in comparison with those before tillage. The best combination of tillage operations for improving the CIs of soil was one plow operation followed by one rotary. After applying the tillage operations, the internal resistance angle reduced by 7-8 degree and the cohesion decreased up to about $1N/cm^2$ in comparison with those before tillage. We concluded that the cone index, the cohesion and the internal resistant angle of soil could be used as measures for representing the relative degree of tillage for a specific tillage operation. In addition, the study was useful as a basic research tool for developing an decision making system that determines an optimal tillage method with soil properties.