The use of ever-heavier farming machinery (e.g. +11.1 tons wheel load for combine harvesters in 2020 compared to 1958) and the increased share of crops with a late-season harvest, like maize and potatoes, in the rotation (e.g. +50% area in Belgium) have made soil compaction one of the most important threats to modern agriculture. This combination of increased soil pressure and field traffic at conditions with a lower soil strength have had a detrimental impact on the soil quality, down into the subsoil.
The overall aim of this dissertation is to test different strategies to prevent and remediate soil compaction in the heavily mechanized agricultural sector of Flanders. The four main objectives are:
1.        to assess the effectiveness of practical prevention measures to help reduce traffic-induced soil compaction and yield loss in sugar beet during slurry spreading and seedbed preparation on a silty loam soil;
2.        to evaluate the short- and longer-term effect of subsoiling on sandy loam soils for several different subsoilers;
3.        to compare subsoiling with biological remediation measures (i.e. deep rooting crops with the capacity to grow into compacted soil layers, also referred to as bio-subsoilers) and to look for new plant species that could be used for this purpose;
4.        to assess if deep rooting crops can help stabilize the loosened subsoil after subsoiling.