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Aims of Soil Cultivation
- 1. To promote and maintain good soil structure and tilth
- 2. To prevent or break up soil pans
- 3. To aerate the soil
- 4. To increase the temperature of cold soils in the spring
- 5. To incorporate mineral and organic matter soil amendments
- 6. To manage crop residues and cover crops
- 7. To control weeds
- 8. To create particulate seed beds and root beds
- 9. To manage plant pathogens and insect pests
- 10. To retain soil moisture
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Cultivation
The total assemblage of tools and techniques used to develop and maintain soil fertility and crop production in garden and farm systems
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Tillage
The operation of implements through the soil to prepare seedbeds and rootbeds
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Objectives of Soil Tillage
- Increase soil aeration
- • Increase soil temperature
- • Increase gas exchange
- • Stimulate soil biological activity/ increase rate of mineralization
- • Improve drainage characteristics: Infiltration and percolation
- • Incorporate soil amendments
- • Control of pests and diseases
- Break up hard pans
- • Incorporate crop residue and/or cover crops
- • Create planting bed for transplants and seeds
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2)What are two possible problems associated with tilling soil when it is too wet or too dry?
- Soil compaction (the compression of pore space)
- • Soil pulverization (the degradation of soil aggregates)
- • Difficult to work
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What is the optimal range of soil moisture (in % field capacity) for tillage operations?
Between 50% and 75% of field capacity
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What are you attempting to achieve through the double-digging process? In what situations is this technique best applied?
- • Stimulation of biological activity and diversity through organic matter inputs
- • The rapid improvement of soil physical properties through soil aeration and the alleviation of compacted soil
- • The rapid improvement of soil chemical properties through deep incorporation of generous amounts of organic matter and mineral amendments
- • Used during the initial stages of soil development
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What are the common tillage sequences used in preparing ground in the spring? Please give steps for both French-intensive (double digging) and mechanical cultivation.
- • Double digging
- a) Step 1: Spread needed organic matter and mineral amendments evenly over soil surface
- b)Step 2: Using string line as guide, articulate edges of bed with a garden fork
- c) Step 3: Fracture and loosen surface soil with garden fork to the depth of the tines
- d)Step 4: Using a spade, create a trench 1 foot deep by 1 foot wide across the width of the bed. Place this soil in wheel barrow or buckets and set aside.
- e) Step 5: Spread additional compost on the bottom of the trench
- f) Step 6: Standing on the path and working from the center of the garden bed outward, fracture and loosen the soil in the bottom of the trench. Repeat this process on both sides of the bed.
- g) Step 7: Using a digging board as a fulcrum, shift the surface soil forward filling the first trench, creating a second trench 1 foot deep and 1 foot wide.
- h)Repeat Steps 5–7 along the length of the bed until the end of the bed is reached
- i) Step 8: Place soil removed from first trench into the last trench created
- j) Step 9: Using a garden fork, incorporate additional soil amendments needed into the top 4–6 inches of the surface soil
- Mechanical Cultivation
- a) Primary tillage: Incorporation of cover crop residue in spring
- i. Mowing (flail or rotary)
- ii. Apply compost with manure spreader prior to residue incorporation, if necessary
- iii.Incorporate cover crop residue and compost with spader or off-set wheel disc
- iv.Rototill or disc field to improve surface uniformity following residue breakdown
- b)Secondary tillage: Seedbed establishment
- i. Form beds with lister bar and shovels or rolling cultivator
- ii. Shape bed with bed shaper
- c) Bed formation and planting
- i. Plant beds with seeder, transplanter, or by hand
- d)Cultivate planted beds with sweeps, knives, or rolling cultivator at timely intervals to minimize weed pressure
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Aerobic
Oxygen containing
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Cultivation
The total assemblage of tools and techniques used in the development and maintenance of soil fertility and crop production in garden and farm systems
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Diffusion
The dispersal of gases through a medium
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French Intensive
A traditional method of horticulture developed in France that emphasizes intensive cultivation, high application rates of soil amendments, and high-density planting
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Granular structure
A specific and desirable form of soil structure
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Humus
Residual and decomposed organic matter held in the soil
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Infiltration
The absorption of water into the soil
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Organic Matter
The material held in or on the surface of the soil that is alive or was once living tissue of plants and/or animals
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Pan
A horizon or layer in soils that is strongly compacted or high in clay content
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Percolation
The downward movement of water through soil horizons
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Pore Space
The air spaces between soil particles
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Primary cultivation
Initial course cultivation used to break up soil mass into smaller particles, incorporate cover crops or soil amendments in preparation for planting seed or transplants
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Secondard Cultivation
Soil cultivation used to further render soil into finer particle sizes in the preparation of seed and root beds. Used subsequent (after) to primary cultivation.
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Soil horizon
An individual and distinct layer of soil
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Soil Organic Matter
Organic matter held in the soil
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Soil separates
Individual soil particles of sand, silt, and clay
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Soil Structure
The physical arrangement of individual soil particles, the way they cling or aggregate
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Soil texture
The classification of a soil based on the relative percentage of sand, silt, and clay
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Soil Tilth
The physical condition of a soil as related to the ease of tillage, fitness as a seedbed, and impedance (obstuction) to seedling and root penetration
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