@article{01KERQT1HJMGB2YM0ZBNBB3P89,
  abstract     = {{To eliminate soil compaction, farmers typically apply uniform, but aggressive tillage practices at maximum speed and depth. However, such an approach cannot efficiently address the spatial variability of soil compaction levels throughout a field. Therefore, site-specific tillage (SST) is expected to offer economic and environmental benefits by targeting compacted zones or layers. This study aims to evaluate, based on field experiments, the agronomic, economic and environmental performance of site-specific mouldboard ploughing (SS-MBP), using soil packing density (PD) maps measured by an on-line multi-sensor platform as input data for tillage recommendation calculations in two sandy-textured fields in Belgium both with silage maize. Each field was divided into three management zones having different PD, each of which was assigned a varying tillage speed. Stripe experiments were then carried out in these fields to compare the advantages and disadvantages of the SS-MBP treatments with uniform mouldboard ploughing (U-MBP). Results of this experiment showed that SS-MBP outperformed U-MBP in terms of reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, increasing yield, and improving gross margins. SS-MBP treatments reduced fuel consumption by 15.4% to 25.9%, increased yield by 1.3% to 3.5% and improved gross margins by 23.25 to 59.74 /ha, compared to the U-MBP treatment in the two field experiments. Crucially, this study validates variable speed control of MBP as an acceptable ploughing practice by farmers than the variable depth approach proposed in earlier simulations. While these findings confirm the viability of SS-MBP for silage maize in sandy soils with low-to-medium degree of compaction, broader validation of the concept across diverse soil textures and crops is required to generalize the results reported in this work.}},
  articleno    = {{111356}},
  author       = {{Wang, Yongjing and Borundia, Ajit and Mouazen, Abdul}},
  issn         = {{0168-1699}},
  journal      = {{COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS IN AGRICULTURE}},
  keywords     = {{Precision agriculture,Variable rate tillage,On-line soil sensing,ONLINE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM,BULK-DENSITY,SOIL,COMPACTION,SENSOR,DRAFT}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{13}},
  title        = {{Comparative analysis of map-based site-specific mouldboard ploughing in silage maize cultivation}},
  url          = {{http://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2025.111356}},
  volume       = {{242}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}

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