Analysis of modern methods and devices for measuring soil hardness

Abstract

The article describes the influence of soil hardness on the development of crops from germination to crop formation. The main factors influencing the formation of an undesirable phenomenon in the soil, the so-called plow sole, are named. The analysis of modern existing methods and means of determination and measurement of soil hardness, both domestic and foreign manufacturers, starting from laboratory methods and ending with soil scanners, is presented.

The most common in our time hardness testers Goryachkin, Kaczynski, Golubev, Revyakin, Vysotsky, Hovhannisyan. In the research practice of Eastern European countries also used a large number of penetrometers (Kirice, Kunze, Florescu-Zellinger, Getko, Borish and others). New devices are also considered, which allow to carry out measurements in the mode of continuous registration simultaneously with tillage, to measure humidity and some other indicators, to accumulate results, to process them statistically and graphically. These are mass-produced American and Dutch hardness testers, as well as hardness testers from Slovakia and Sweden. Similar developments are underway in Ukraine (MM Surdu, VV Medvedev).

However, more complete information can be given by continuous field hardness measurement with soil density correlation, GPS overlay, and construction of electronic soil density maps.

The issue of soil hardness was and is relevant, because it depends on the formation of yields and, accordingly, the profit of farmers. Thus, there is an urgent task of improving methods and means of measuring soil hardness.

The question of developing a cheaper method, in contrast to soil scanners, to determine the plow sole, but no less effective than them.