Some root facts.

[Elmsted]

 

[warksfarmer]

View attachment 40039

Ok good credible fact but what constitutes 'zero compacted soil'?

1. Land under a no-till and CTF regime.

Or

2. Land that is thoroughly cultivated so say Pan bust entire working width of the machine down as deep as possible then obliterate everything above that into small particles - possibly what a spading machine does?

 

[marco]

Ok good credible fact but what constitutes 'zero compacted soil'?

1. Land under a no-till and CTF regime.

Or

2. Land that is thoroughly cultivated so say Pan bust entire working width of the machine down as deep as possible then obliterate everything above that into small particles - possibly what a spading machine does?

Lee I would think it was loose soil in a lab, could be wrong

 

[warksfarmer]

Lee I would think it was loose soil in a lab, could be wrong

More than likely but that would be more akin to thoroughly cultivated soils rather than no till

 

[rob1]

yes that may be possible but how is that relevant to a "real" farm, we have no more than 10 ins of soil and if you removed all compaction and made the soil loose it would just slump afterwards

 

[debe]

Lab 'loose' soil will have been placed very carefully into the container, and would not even have been dropped from a height, very tedious and nothing like thoroughly cultivated soils. The point of which I would assume to be creating a soil with a uniform density throughout.
I think the fact that it is loose may be a slight white elephant, and perhaps it has more to do with the behaviour of root growth?

 

[RushesToo]

I think the relevance is that a root grows for only 72 hours then stops. Once flowering no more roots grow.
How this knowledge might be used to get better yields I am not sure - no one can plough to 2m.

 

[arcobob]

Very unscientific and devoid of parameters. What was the soil temperature, moisture regime etc. ?

 

[warksfarmer]

Lab 'loose' soil will have been placed very carefully into the container, and would not even have been dropped from a height, very tedious and nothing like thoroughly cultivated soils. The point of which I would assume to be creating a soil with a uniform density throughout.
I think the fact that it is loose may be a slight white elephant, and perhaps it has more to do with the behaviour of root growth?

Yep I agree but still a hand placed soil is very loose which has enabled the roots to grow very quickly.

So with that in mind a root cannot possibly grow like that in soil that is not moved because even if that soil is not classed as compacted, the root have got to push through it, where as they have not had to really push through the hand placed soil.

So with that in mind surely loosened soil will be better for root penetration ......

 

[RushesToo]

Article here:
www.soilcursebuster.com/Roots_Rooting_and_Water.pdf‎
site sells vertical tillage machinery
www.soilcursebuster.com

 

[warksfarmer]

Article here:
www.soilcursebuster.com/Roots_Rooting_and_Water.pdf‎
site sells vertical tillage machinery
www.soilcursebuster.com

Quite like the look of that machine to be honest.

 

[York]

they are already working on the continent.

Y-Th.

 

[warksfarmer]

they are already working on the continent.

Y-Th.

One in Finland .........

Anymore ?

What do you think about them York?

 

[BSH]

Surely this slide has to be relevant in discussion about crop potential. We are told that our crops could produce more and this slide shows how so it suggests soil management is key. There may be lab constraints but surely it is something we should aim for?

 

[Treemover]

2metres is something of a myth. My tree spade digs a hole 5 feet deep; and rarely do I see roots at 5 feet. Most are in the top 12 inches (top soil) with a few in the b horizon. But rarely do i see much in the parent material.

I think if we had deep fertile soils 2 metres deep, well I might see roots venturing further; but 2 m- I'd say oxygen would be the restriction?

I know with tree roots we are encouraged to "cultivate" to aid root formation.

If the above picture was true; sub soiling would be growing noticably larger plants in rows??

 

[rob1]

Surely the only place roots need to go is to where the nutrients are, what is there going to be 2mtrs down? crops grown on plastic sheets with trickle water/nutrient supply dont produce much root because they dont need to.

 

[martian]

Francis Pryor, one of the archaeologists of the Timeteam lot off the TV, said that they once, in a very dry year, saw some crop marks in a field of wheat on the Lincolnshire coast which surprised them as the soil was 20 foot deep loess (wind blow) covering land not seen since Roman times. Digging down they indeed found ancient ditches and ramparts etc, suggesting that the wheat roots not only got that far, but also the longer roots in the ditch 20 foot below the surface could scavenge enough water to make the plant at the top show up greener such that your could spot it from an aeroplane.

I guess that there would be worm-holes etc to follow, but, by its windblown nature, loess is nice easy digging soil

 

[yellow belly]

in the 1980s wheat roots were found 2 m down

 

[RushesToo]

in the 1980s wheat roots were found 2 m down

Compaction must be worse that we thought then.

 

[Elmsted]

Glad to see it has stirred debate. And as YB writes in lincolnshire fens and chermodium here both of which are more than 20 ft deep roots do go down 2 metres. The purpose was not so much structure of soil as root growth time scale. As well researched work from the 1970's shows total root length is around 1000 km per square metre in wheat.

Think I may have put this here or elsewhere before. Of course those nearer the surface are taking up nutrients whereas the others are more involved in scavenging for water. Hence the observations from an aeroplane I suggest.
The same as going in to a wheat field in June and gently using fingers the soil is almost totally covered in very fine roots, One can also age them and hence functionality.