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Farm vehicles approaching weights of sauropods exceed limits for soil function
- xvilka 4y agoCan it be addressed by changing the platform of farming vehicles? Hexapod walkers, for example?
- jacquesm 4y agoThere is a lot of active research in this domain but it is hard to make something that is as reliable, usually the goal with those systems is not to allow for lower soil compaction but to be able to work in places where wheeled vehicles can't.
- VBprogrammer 4y agoThe obvious solution is automated tractors. The main drive for larger and larger tractors is to maximize the amount of ground covered per time / operator. If the tractors can work tirelessly day and night that is somewhat mitigated. The actual driving part is obviously much more trivial than autonomous driving on roads. However there are a lot of hard to automate adjustments and maintenance items going on with many tractor implements.
- jacquesm 4y agoBig tractors are also more fuel efficient, which is a bit counterintuitive.
- salawat 4y agoNot really. The larger you make a powerplant, the more thermodynamically efficient it can get. This is why things like trains and supertankers make sense where they are available.
- omegabravo 4y agoAs I understand it (and I don't understand it, I'm not source of authority here) the tractors don't need to work day and night, they need to work during the important planting and harvesting seasons. That happens to be the same time that your neighbour wants to do it. Efficiency is key here so that one harvester can work several farms 24/7, for a limited period of time. As you outlined, uptime is critical during these periods. I spent a lot of my time in remote locations, and reliability trumps everything. The cost of a hotshot is significant - however I was far more remote than the farms where. Paying a person to drive the tractor doesn't seem like it's the large cost. It's the machinery you need 1x per year, at the same time everyone else does.
- imtringued 4y agoThis is a new approach: https://youtu.be/TD9EjVL7Lx4 https://youtu.be/TD9EjVL7Lx4
- cseleborg 4y agoNot in agriculture, so I don't really know what I'm talking about, but... Isn't that pretty much everything that's wrong with our agriculture today? Isn't large-scale monoculture, which this system obviously aims to support, a part of the environmental problems we're facing? The original article points to the unsustainable course of the current trend, so while the caterpillar system and the ability to roll on less land solves the immediate problem described, it fails once you look at the bigger picture, I think.
- riskable 4y agoThere's no reason why a giant machine can't manage multiple different crops/plants at once. The problem in industrial agriculture isn't the geometric layout of straight rows/columns... It's the monoculture (and fertilizer/pesticide usage and soil compaction and plastic pollution!). It would be interesting to see a farm get a new voronoi-style layout each growing season.
- cdot2 4y agoI don't see that a more complex vehicle would have a significant affect. All that matters is the weight/surface area contact with the ground. You can achieve that by using tracks or just bigger and more tires.
- rocqua 4y agoGiven that the problem is effectively 'total force over the entire footprint of the vehicle', you would need a platform that doesn't press down on the ground. I guess helicopers would work. Maybe a hovercraft too, but I suspect a hovercraft effectively transfers all the force into the ground anyway.
- jacquesm 4y agoAs every farmer knows: it's not the weight that matters but the soil compaction, and that's a function of weight over surface area of the contact patches of whatever drive train your tractor has. That's also why tractor tires are so wide, and high flotation tires are commonly used. Another way in which farmers combat soil compaction is by aeration and tilling. It's true though that tractors are getting larger and heavier, but farmers are pretty knowledgeable about these things and usually take them into account when deciding what kind of machinery (on what kind of tires) to use for their soil, after all, if they get it wrong they may end up negatively impacting the yield of their land. Finally, crops tend to be planted in rows for convenient mechanical processing, and while walking behind a tractor you can actually see the soil rise again after the tractor has passed, usually because the soil acts as a sponge, the tractor squeezes the water out and once it has passed the soil will spring back. It's a bit strange to realize that the ground you walk on is so springy because you normally don't notice it.
- supermatt 4y agoThey cover exactly this in the article. The main take is "while surface contact stresses remained nearly constant over the course of modern mechanization, subsoil stresses have propagated into deeper soil layers and now exceed safe mechanical limits for soil ecological functioning". i.e. they state that the stresses propagate deeper into the soil, regardless of the pressure imparted on the surface. I dont understand it exactly, but thats what they are saying. I guess its something to do with the increased overall mass being supported by and compressing the underlying soil layers, rather than the (relatively) shallow sub-surface compaction we are usually concerned about.
- jacquesm 4y agoIndeed, which is why the title is so strange. Sauropods are a strange thing to compare with anyway, I would compare it with other methods actually used for working the land.
- anotheryou 4y agoI just skimmed the abstract but it sounds like they made the comparison because sauropods already compressed most soil everywhere. So it simplifies it a bit in the title, but it's about exceeding the level of compression already established anyways due to sauropods. Also the weight over area might become less relevant the deeper you go because it naturally spreads outwards anyways.
- 7952 4y agoI like the design of the article viewer on PNAS. Does anyone know anything about the stack they use?
- orangepurple 4y agoCould this be mitigated by detonating small quantities of high explosives a few meters below ground in a 2D grid?
- gostsamo 4y agoI think that small tactical nucks might yield better results. /S
- jacquesm 4y agoPNE's were actually suggested at some point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_nuclear_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_nuclear_explosion
- gostsamo 4y agoYep, I know. Still, using explosives on a mass scale to counter the actions of tractors is rather impractical. The only place it might be considered useful could be the Ukrainian war. In all other places, digging the earth to plant the explosives will do more for tilling the soil than the explosives themselves.
- orangepurple 4y ago> I think that small tactical nucks might yield better results. /S I am not sure what small squads of Canadian military have to do with this
- samatman 4y agoThis... kind of answers your question actually! https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0189177 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... The answer is yes, bearing in mind this study is actually about bioremediation of the toxic residues of (some!) explosives. I struggle to think of a way that a guncotton deflagration could contaminate soil, this could just be a failure of imagination on my part but the idea isn't completely insane.
- dhbradshaw 4y agoI think one of the reasons to get bigger and bigger is to save human time. If we get to a place where it's all AI, is there a chance that many smaller machines will become more effective than a few enormous ones?
- tda 4y agoI would think so. There is a lot going on in this area, see e.g. https://pixelfarmingrobotics.com/robot-one/ https://pixelfarmingrobotics.com/robot-one/ and https://www.odd.bot/ https://www.odd.bot/
- TomJansen 4y agoDoesn't the economy of scale teach us that one big apparatus is cheaper than many smaller ones?
- danaris 4y agoThe soil doesn’t care how much it costs. Stop thinking with your wallet; our times demand a more holistic approach.
- SnowHill9902 4y agoScale is not size.
- jessaustin 4y ago"Economy of scale" is not a universal law as CEOs (and some economists) like to pretend.
- twobitshifter 4y agoThat first one is incredible and the second looks like a more cost effective option. Most don’t realize that organic farming isn’t pesticide free but this gives farmers that option without resorting to hand-weeding.
- bluGill 4y ago
- spiderfarmer 4y agoI read this “research” and the quality is laughable. Farmers, paleontologists and soil researchers will all find hilarious passages that make it seem like a high school project.
- flybrand 4y agoYes! It read like a ‘Fake Invisible Catastrophe and Threat of Doom.’
- s1artibartfast 4y agoFun and interesting question though. Im glad they published something.
- ldiracdelta 4y agoExample of Gell-Mann Amnesia?
- anonu 4y agoIf you're making the case that heavy farm machines reduce soil function, why would you throw the sauropod analogy into the mix to complicate things? I guess it would be a bland paper without that bit...
- mensetmanusman 4y agoAlthough wheels are much more efficient than flight, I wonder if low cost solar charged and battery powered fleets of drones will be deployed for seeding and harvest in our lifetimes.
- sylware 4y ago"cloudflare enable javascript plz" ... those "ppl" are still bullying noscript/basic (x)html browsers.
- graycat 4y ago
- formvoltron 4y agoSo stop using big engines carrying fuel in the machines? Just run electric wires to poles and then run a retractable wire to the machine.
- whalesalad 4y agoSounds fine and dandy on paper but out in the field ... that would require a tremendous amount of infrastructure. The juice is not worth the squeeze.
- conorcleary 4y agoI dunno - it's a thought I hadn't seen put out there and you're 100% against it within minutes. The field ain't going anywhere - why not have permanent solar-powered infrastructure to recharge robotic agricultural enthusiasts?
- randomdata 4y ago> it's a thought I hadn't seen put out there The commenter who stated he works for John Deere put out the same thought here, but like the parent expressed that diesel would have to become a lot more expensive for the infrastructure costs to pencil out.
- usrusr 4y agoInfrastructure that's used how often per year? A dozen times? Rail lines that get a dozen trains per day tend to not get electrified... As I've stated elsewhere, I expect a future with drone swarms that carry a power line while feeding from it. Certainly not cheap (high performance cables are never cheap, think hundreds of meters of supercharger cable?), but it would be a near-universal base technology for many application fields so it would have all the possibility a technology might need to start in some an niche and grow from there.
- beambot 4y agoSo many problems with cable-fed drones over farm-sized distances: (1) Cables rapidly exceed the vehicle weight; (2) keeping cables off the ground requires extreme tension beyond the forces capable by the drone; and (3) aerial drones are very sensitive to thrust-to-weight. You'd effectively need a swarm of drones just to lift the cable...
- balb0a 4y agoWhen you destroy/squeez fungus in the forest it takes centuries to recover[1]. In Prussia when they started with scientific forestry, productivity of the forrest dropped significantly after around 100 years[2]. Good times to come. I wonder why we look the other way, even when we have all the knowledge on our hands. Two great books: [1]: The Hidden Life of Trees [2]: Seeing Like a State
- TinyRick 4y ago> I wonder why we look the other way Because it's profitable, unfortunately.
- FooBarBizBazz 4y agoIf the trees aren't populating Jira tickets, are they really even doing anything?
- dczx 4y agoInteresting
- HomeDeLaPot 4y agoDisclaimer: I didn't read the article. Why are farm vehicles so big anyway? Is one very large vehicle more efficient than multiple smaller vehicles, or are human operators the main constraint, i.e. because of labor costs it's cheaper to hire one guy to drive a bigger tractor than 3 guys to drive 3 small tractors? Maybe this is a problem that will be solved in the next few decades by driverless tractors, or just tractors that are autonomous enough for one operator to "drive" several at the same time. I could see other advantages to having multiple small tractors: redundancy (one breakdown doesn't stop the whole show); easier transport; easier scaling (can increase or reduce capacity in smaller increments; buying one tractor no longer requires a huge equipment loan)...
- rtkwe 4y agoThe equipment being pulled has become smarter and smarter over the years allowing a lot of control over the planting which has increased yields. They're necessarily heavier to contain more sensors and actuators though which requires a larger/heavier tractor to reliably haul them around fields. The tractors have also gotten significantly more advanced from tractors used in the past; enclosed cabs with climate control, autosteer to follow a programmed path, etc.
- Zigurd 4y ago> They're necessarily heavier to contain more sensors and actuators though which requires a larger/heavier tractor to reliably haul them around fields. I'm not buying this causal chain: Sensors do not weigh much; I don't see a reason why the number and weight of actuators should change because the machines have more smarts. I suspect tractors and implements get bigger because that's an obvious path to higher operator productivity.
- cogman10 4y agoYou suspect correctly. Tractors weigh more because they have steadily increased in size which decreases the number of passes a tractor needs to make over a field. Like having a 20 inch lawnmower vs a 50 inch lawn mower. The 20 inch mower can be self propelled with a tiny HP engine. The 50 inch mowers are pretty much all riding because the extra drag and engine size increase to cut the grass is large enough that adding bigger wheels and a steering wheel makes more sense than having someone push it. Obviously, the 50 inch mower will work a lot faster.
- dandare 4y ago> [...] chronic soil compaction [...] negatively impacts various soil functions (9, 26). These are manifested by a persistent decline in crop yields (13, 27, 28), limited water infiltration capacity (8, 10), and a decline in other soil ecosystem services (29, 30). It is a pity the article calls these effects as "well known" and does not explain them deeper.
- PhaseLockk 4y agoThat's what all those citations are for.
- js290 4y ago
- wonderwonder 4y agoReading articles like this always amaze me, not so much for the problem itself but for the existence of the problem and millions like it that I never even consider in my day to day. The more you know the more you realize there is so much you don't.
- toss1 4y agoYup, it is NOT just the pressure/surface area (which does apply to the top layers of the soil), but the total weight supported by the soil (which compacts the also-critical deeper soil layers). This is just one of the problems of massive monoculture farming. It is insanely destructive and unsustainable. On a recent-ish trip to the midwest US, driving away from the airport/city seemed lovely as the landscape turned rural. Then, it started to get really troubling as we'd realize that the fields were so endless and unbroken, creating vast areas with essentially zero habitat for anything other than the farmed crop - from the lowly soil fungi to top predators - nothing. In many ways, far more unnatural than many paved cities. Elon Musk and his ilk are 100% wrong about the "need" to continue increasing human population. We survive literally by extracting yields from the excess carrying capacity of the biosphere. At some point, we can exceed that capacity, and the result will be collapse. This will occur like with any other population that outgrows its resources - arriving at a state where the population's needs exceed resources by 10-20% does not result in 10-20% deaths, but 80-90%, because the shortage is spread throughout the entire population - they don't just say "we're 10% over so you 10% take one for the team and die this month, sorry", but everyone is undernourished to the point of unsurvivability. This is merely one example of how the entire system is unstable.
- 317070 4y ago> "we're 10% over so you 10% take one for the team and die this month, sorry" While it is indeed not entirely like that, it does come a lot closer to the truth than you would expect (and it has always done that). In the 18th century when France did not have enough food, almost everybody was worse off, but most people were not actually hungry, they just paid more for the food they ate. Because inequality is so big and following a power-law (as you go closer to the top, people have exponentially more) the prices go up a little until demand of the top x% is met, and the bottom x% cannot pay and goes hungry until starvation. And because of the exponential difference, the bottom will starve while the top will actually notice very little. There is a group in the middle between those extremes that has trouble paying more and goes undernourished, but it's not actually that large of a group. The larger the inequality is, the smaller the group in the middle. Think about how many people in the US will go hungry because of the worldwide wheat shortage as compared to some African countries. The small price difference will be barely noticeable in the US, a country which adds on tons of other value by turning the wheat into salmon bagels in a complex process. But these price differences are huge for many African countries, which only grind the wheat and mix it with water.
- ratsmack 4y agoOn our farm we would use an attachment called a ripper. It was a series of blades that would reach down 18 to 20 inches to break up the soil. Behind each blade was a 3.5 inch diameter bullet shaped slug (called a mole) that would create an underground tunnel, not unlike what an actual mole creates. We grew carrots, so it was imperative that soil compaction was limited or it would stunt the length of the carrots.
- asdff 4y agoI wonder if you could fill up a cavity on a farm vehicle with some lifting gas and reduce weight without reducing mass?
- cwkoss 4y agoYou'd need a zeppelin sized bladder to lift a moderately sized farm vehicle. I think it would likely be impractical due to wind. I think sets of 3 towers with cables between them so tools could be translated within their boundaries, kind of like a delta-style 3d printer, could work well.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- candyman 4y agoIt feels like there should be a more direct way to grow stuff. AppHarvest is doing something interesting. Why plant in dirt outside and rely on lossy transmission of fertilizer and water to the plant? Plus fungus, parasites, etc. A controlled environment where you can get the nutrients and water directly to the plant seems a lot more efficient. I know the capex is huge but still. We probably should all be eating less (and wasting less) food here in the US.
- foxyv 4y agoMostly it's just economies of scale. Who cares if 20% of the crop is lost to random soil related problems if you can grow ten times as much stuff in dirt than in a controlled environment. Land is so much cheaper than indoor farming. However, I think the critical thing that is going to make indoor farming commercially viable will be water prices. At some point, the heavily subsidized water in the western US is going to finish collapsing. Indoor farming lets you milk every drop of water into product. We're talking 10:1 ratios of water usage between outdoor and indoor farming. Currently, water to grow iceberg lettuce is about 12% of the total cost in California at $216 per acre foot. Currently it is possible for those rates to triple or even quadruple in the next few years. We may be seeing a lot more indoor growing soon! Totally exciting!
- snambi 4y agoIndustrial farming is a wrong idea.
- farmerbob 4y agoPrecisely.
- Cody_C 4y agoI recently read a fascinating book about trees. It was called The hidden Life of Trees. One study they talked about in the book, tried to find out why pipes were often destroyed by tree roots. Most people assumed it was from water leaking or condensation around pipes. However, the study found that it was actually because the soil was far looser and less compact around the pipes. It is almost impossible to really gauge all the ramifications of any choice within the analog system we live in.
- low_common 4y agoHaha PENIS!
- WalterBright 4y agoAdd more axles and wheels to spread out the load. Or even tracks.
- Dork1234 4y agoThis article is total BS, they could actually research the yields/soil between farms that use Steiger/John Deere 50,000lb tractors tractors (or smaller) versus farms that use Big Bud or other insanely large tractors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bud_747 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bud_747 Truthfully ballast limit on most normal machines is around 60,000lbs for many years now which I am guessing is the realistic maximum the soil can handle and manufactures have already figured this out.