SeedChaser: Vertical soil tillage distribution model

Authors: Spokas, Kurt; Forcella, Frank; Archer, David; Reicosky, Donald

Submitted to: Computers and Electronics in Agriculture
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/31/2007
Publication Date: 5/1/2007
Citation: Spokas, K.A., Forcella, F., Archer, D.W., Reicosky, D.C. 2007. SeedChaser: Vertical Soil Tillage Distribution Model. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture. 57:62-73.

Interpretive Summary: The movement of soil due to tillage is important in a wide variety of research areas. One of the most critical to farming is the movement of buried weed seeds as a consequence of tillage, since the depth the seed is buried at directly impacts the probability of the seed germinating and emerging as a weed the following year. SeedChaser is a model to predict this soil movement due to tillage. The applications of this model are not limited to solely weed seed movement, but also chemical granules, broadcast fertilizers, as well as crop residues. The present model can handle up to nine passes of user selected sequences of sixteen different implements. SeedChaser was written in the JAVA programming language and is publicly available via the internet. It is envisioned that this program will be used by farmers, scientists, extension educators, and agricultural industry personnel to predict how the soil is moved after tillage.

Technical Abstract: Knowledge of the vertical distribution of surface residues, chemicals, or seeds following tillage operations is of paramount importance to a wide variety of soil research areas. This paper describes a 1-D empirical vertical soil tillage distribution model with 1-cm grid spacing (SeedChaser) that predicts vertical redistribution of weed seeds following user selected (a) sequences of tillage implements and (b) initial seed distribution values.Results of this model are particularly suited for weed seed emergence modeling. However, the model can be adapted easily to any surface broadcasted agrochemical or incorporated residues. The present model can handle up to nine passes of user selected sequences of sixteen different implements. A majority of prior models examined only the impact of a more limited list of implements at much larger depth intervals, which reduced the predictability of fine-scale vertical movement that may be needed for simulating movements of seeds or chemical granules. SeedChaser consolidates the results from these previous models along with new data on conservation tillage implements into a prediction tool that would have applications both in weed science, as well as other soil research areas. SeedChaser was developed in JAVA and is publicly available via the internet.