As farm tractors lumber across fields, their extreme heft can slowly crush the soil and make it harder for plant roots to grow. Such effects, a new study suggests, could diminish harvests across 20% of global cropland in the coming decades.
A top-of-the-line farm tractor stands taller than an African elephant. And fully loaded with grain, a combine harvester weighs up to 36 tons—as much as a small herd of pachyderms. As these mechanical beasts lumber across fields, their extreme heft can slowly crush the soil and make it harder for plant roots to grow. Such effects, a new study suggests, could diminish harvests across 20% of global cropland in the coming decades.
Tractors have been getting ever bigger since the 1960s, and the largest now weigh almost 10 times what they did then. That’s heavier than some sauropod dinosaurs, the largest creatures ever to walk on land. Although the machines’ size makes them more efficient, all that extra weight comes at a cost. In mechanized farming, compaction has long occurred in the upper soil, in layers shallower than 50 centimeters. On many farms, this topsoil is plowed or tilled each season to prepare the ground for planting, making such pressures largely a nonissue. The problem now is deeper, researchers say, because compaction in the layers below 50 centimeters often exceeds safe limits.
It’s not just combine harvesters. Other farm equipment, used for ploughing and spreading fertilizer, is also getting heavier, as are vehicles used for logging. RoughlyProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
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