Controlled trafic farming (CTF)について

なるべく土壌を踏み固めないようにする，農業機械の運用方法．

いくらタイヤを広げようとも，トラックを使おうとも，機械が走れば土は固まってきて，表面の踏み硬めだけではなく，深層を締め固めることにもつながる(これは，tire vs trackで書いた．)

でも作業効率を高めるためには，大型の機械を使用しなければならない．

どうしたらよいか．

そこで考え出されたのが，CTFである．

CTFとは

Controlled traffic farming (CTF) is the start of a journey – a journey to reduce production costs and increase yields while improving soil health and delivering positively to the environment. It works on the principle that “if it’s not broken, you don’t need to fix it”. Much of the time and energy we put into soils is to undo the compaction damage we have caused by driving machines all over them. This video clip shows just how severe the effects can be. Due to machines getting heavier and heavier, this damage is extending deeper and deeper into the soil profile. So deep in fact, that damage may already be uneconomic to repair.

Controlled traffic farming turns our present production systems on their head by leaving 80 – 90% of fields permanently without compaction, rather than the other way around. CTF aims to confine soil compaction to the least possible area of permanent traffic lanes. It sounds simple but because our machines have never been designed to do this, it needs a lot of thought and good planning to get it right.