Evaluating Soil Compaction with a Portable Electronic Cone Penetrometer
During Summer 1997, soil compaction in agricultural fields was evaluated using a portable electronic cone penetrometer. Rather than requiring the operator to read from an analog scale, this penetrometer stores data in a digital form, which are downloaded to a personal computer for analysis. Soil strength, measured in 1-inch (2.5-cm) increments, can be stored for up to 100 25-inch (64-cm) deep soil profiles. This instrument can be operated by a single person and facilitates collecting large data sets required to characterize highly variable soil environments. Because the penetrometer was designed to measure and formulate predictions about the trafficability of wet soils, it is often incapable of measuring the higher soil resistance occurring in drier agricultural fields. If used soon after rainfall or irrigation, it is useful in detecting hardpans associated with tillage or traffic patterns.