Soil Engineering

The agricultural world has changed significantly during the last years. The excessive use of heavy machinery, waste disposal, the use of agrochemicals and new soil cultivation means led to severe problems, which agricultural engineers have to cope with in order to prevent soil from permanent irreversible damage.

This Soil Biology volume will update readers on several cutting-edge aspects of sustainable soil engineering including topics such as: soil compaction, soil density increases, soil disturbance and soil fragmentation; soil tillage machineries and optimization of tillage tools; soil traffic and traction, effects of heavy agricultural machines, the use of robotics in agriculture and controlled traffic farming; mechanical weed control, the characterization of soil variability and the recycling of compost and biosolids in agricultural soils.

Inhalt
Soil Tillage.- Draught Requirement During Tillage.- Influence of Soil Tillage on Soil Compaction.- Vibrating Tillage Tools.- Soil Disturbance and Soil Fragmentation During Tillage.- Soil Dynamics Traffic and Traction.- Robotics and Sustainability in Soil Engineering.- Soil Density Increases resulting from Alternative Tire and Rubber Track Configurations in Laboratory and Field Conditions.- Effects of Heavy Agricultural Machines for Sugar Beet Harvesting on Physical Soil Properties.- Controlled Traffic Farming.- Subsoil Compaction: Cause, Impact, Detection, and Prevention.- Testing of Soil Tillage Machinery.- Soil Management and Mechanical Weed Control.- Mechanical Weed Control.- Characterisation of Soil Variability with Depth Using VisNIR Spectra and Chemometric Tools.- Considerations for Recycling of Compost and Biosolids in Agricultural Soil.