Controlled traffic as the basis of sustainable soil management for intensive vegetable production

Intensive vegetable production relies on diverse crop rotations, frequent cropping schedules and intensive use of machinery for incorporation of crop residue, seedbed preparation and harvest. Intensive random traffic, as is used in vegetable production, requires excessive tillage in an effort to remediate soil compaction. By permanently isolating traffic to defined wheel tracks, controlled traffic farming (CTF) provides a number of farming system benefits including improved energy efficiency, soil health, crop yield, timeliness and economics. The adoption of controlled traffic in the Tasmanian vegetable industry is challenged by a wide diversity of machinery, and topography ranging from flat to steeply undulating.

Research in the vegetable industry has shown improvements in soil physical conditions can be achieved in a short time with the use of controlled traffic. The implementation of controlled traffic leads to a change in tillage management, resulting in fewer, less energy-intense, operations. The role of tillage becomes largely one of managing residue to provide seeding and subsequent harvest conditions appropriate to the crops grown. The need to remediate soil compaction largely disappears, apart from some remedial deep tillage at the interface of the wheel track and the crop bed to prevent excessive encroachment of wheel track compaction into the bed.