Songül Gürsoy

By Songül Gürsoy

In modern agriculture, most of the field operations from sowing to harvesting are done mechanically by using heavy agriculture machines. However, the loads from these heavy machines may induce stresses exceeding soil strength causing soil compaction. Nowadays, soil compaction is considered as a serious form of soil degradation, which may have serious economics and environmental consequences in world agriculture because of its effects on soil structure, plant growth and environmental events. Vehicle load, inflation pressure, number of passes, stress on the soil, and soil properties (e.g. soil water content, soil texture, soil strength, soil bulk density) play an important role on soil compaction. This chapter reviews the works related to soil compaction in agricultural areas. Also, it discusses the nature and causes of soil compaction, the effects of the compaction on soil properties, environment and plant growth, and the possible solutions suggested in the literature.

Part of the book: Technology in Agriculture

By Songül Gürsoy

Precision agriculture (PA) is a modern farming management system adopted throughout the world, which employs cropping practices by observing and measuring the temporal and spatial variability in fields to enhance the sustainability of agricultural production through more efficient use of land, water, fuel, fertilizer, and pesticides. The efficiency of precision agriculture technologies (PAT) in agricultural production mainly depends on the use of site-specific agricultural inputs accurately through decision support mechanisms by observing and measuring the variables such as soil condition, plant health, and weed intensity. Although there have been significant developments in PAT, especially remote sensing as a key source of information available in support of PA in recent years, its adoption has been very slow by farmers due to a variety of reasons. The main aim of this chapter is to provide a critical overview of how recent developments in sensing technologies, geostatistical analysis, data fusion, and interpolation techniques can be used in the cotton production systems to optimize yields while minimizing water, chemical pesticide, and nitrogen inputs and analysis the main factors influencing the adoption of PAT by cotton farmers. Therefore, this chapter includes a compressive literature survey of the studies done on the current use and trends of PAT, and on farm level use of PA in cotton production worldwide.

Part of the book: Best Crop Management and Processing Practices for Sustainable Cotton Production [Working title]