Presentation
A Portable Tillage Profiler for Measuring Subsoiling Effectiveness
2002 ASAE Annual International Meeting / CIGR XVth World Congress
(2002)
Abstract
A portable tillage profiler (PTP) was constructed using a laser distance sensor, a linear actuator, a portable pc, and a lightweight aluminum frame that can quickly and accurately measure above- and belowground soil disruption caused by tillage. A laboratory experiment was conducted that determined that soil color did not detrimentally affect the PTP with expected vertical errors of 2.3 mm and horizontal errors of 0.6 mm being found. However, when pure white and black objects were examined, the errors increased to 4.2 mm vertically and 11 mm horizontally. This maximum error was established when attempting to measure the height and width of a wedge, which had a sharpened edge pointing vertically upward. The PTP was used in the NSDL soil bins to measure both above- and belowground soil disruption caused by two subsoiler shanks. The PTP gave results that enabled differences between the aboveground disruption caused by each subsoiler to be statistically established.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2002
Location
Chicago, IL, United States
DOI
10.13031/2013.10377
Citation Information
Randy L. Raper, Tony E. Grift and Mehari Z. Tekeste. "A Portable Tillage Profiler for Measuring Subsoiling Effectiveness" 2002 ASAE Annual International Meeting / CIGR XVth World Congress (2002) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/mehari-tekeste/13/