Subsoiling

Subsoiling of soil

A subsoiler is a form of deep harrow, which can go down to 80 cm in depth. It does not look like other common harrows, because it has “only” very few teeth attached. The very few teeth are due to the fact that it goes very deep in the ground, and this requires a huge amount of traction from the tractor. Many subsoilers also have a very powerful packing roller mounted, which ensures that the soil is evenly afterwards. Most farmers who subsoils, use this deep soil treatment to break compact layers in the soil. It is important that you do not drive on freshly worked on soil, as you may risk recompressing the soil. Compact soil may be due to hardpan. Hardpan means that the soil in a given area is so compact that there is very little or no oxygen left in the soil. In addition, the compact soil can also cause rainwater to not pass through the soil, creating artificial lakes on the ground. Lack of oxygen and lakes on the fields is a really bad cocktail for crop growth. This often results in a significant loss of income for the farmer. The compact soil is often due to the farmer driving heavy machines on the ground in terms of the soil’s carrying capacity. The worst form of hardpan is typically seen where the soil also has been very water saturated at the same time. This kind of unfortunate relationship with the earth is seen, for example, by sugar beets. Harvesting of sugar beets is usually done with extremely heavy machines in the autumn. Compact soil is also seen after the sprayer, when you choose to subsequently to drive your subsoiler in the tracks. Subsoiling is also used if the farmer has plowed for many years and the soil shows signs of damage. Gradually it has also become very popular to so rapeseed with a subsoiler. The subsoiler gives the deep taproot to the rapeseed, so it can go deep into the soil without difficulty.

Subsoiling of clay soil

Clay soil can very quickly become extremely compact. In these cases subsoiling can be very tempting. But you must however be careful, as you can quickly worsen the given situation. If the soil is very wet in the deeper layers of soil, a aggregation of pores of air and cracks that is left in the soil.

Price of subsoiling

The price for subsoiling, with driver, is around 20 GBP/Acre.