The methods and depth of soil cultivation are dictated by the main tasks, everything should contribute to obtaining sustainable high yields of agricultural crops and at the same time protect the soil from erosion and effective fertility.

The method and depth of soil cultivation depend primarily on soil and climatic conditions, biological characteristics of crops and plants and are zonal in nature.

The question of the depth of soil cultivation is constantly being considered by farmers and scientists.

In the history of agriculture, there are many examples when attempts were made to replace expensive methods of deep plowing with surface tillage. At the beginning of the last century, Ivan Ovsinsky's book "A New Farming System" was published, in which, instead of plowing, 5 cm surface treatment was proposed with multi-body plows or a specially designed knife cultivator.

The middle of the last century was marked by a decisive revision of the previously established views and provisions on the methods and depth of soil cultivation.

Due to the combination of various tillage operations with the use of combined aggregates, new methods of tillage have appeared: “minimal tillage” with the replacement of basic tillage methods with surface tillage methods; "Zero" (no processing at all); "Chemical processing" of the soil (that is, the transition to uncultivated agriculture).

Back in 1943, the American farmer Edward Faulkner proposed a system of tillage with a disk tool instead of a plow. Considering the annual plowing with moldboard plows to be the main reason for the decrease in soil fertility and the development of erosion, he recommended the widespread use of green fertilizers with the incorporation of their mass with disc tools by about 7.5 cm.Surface treatment, in his opinion, provides more favorable water and nutrient regimes of the soil. Some scientists in the United States believe that cultivation of the soil is not necessary at all, and mechanical tillage can only serve to control weeds.

In our country, almost simultaneously with the activities of E. Faulkner, the idea of ​​moldless and surface tillage of the soil was widely developed in the works of T. S. Maltsev. He designed a special plow for moldboard-free tillage. He recommended that the soil be plowed not annually, but after 3 - 5 years (depending on crop rotation) by 40 - 50 cm, and the rest of the time to work superficially, by 10-12 cm, with disc tools.

An analysis of various methods and depths of soil cultivation shows that agriculture cannot be based only on surface and even more so "zero" tillage, that is, a complete absence of cultivation. This is possible only in individual cases and something, provided that a deep cultivated arable layer is created.

The soil should be loosened, using basic processing techniques, to such an extent that the needs of plants for water and nutrients are met.

When there is a need for the purchase of agricultural machinery and cultivators , the cultivator's question about the depth of cultivation and the effect of soil volume on the crop yield is often discussed. (from "cultivators" - transition to rollers, from "depth" - to inter-row))

The famous soil scientist - agrochemist and founder of colloidal soil chemistry Konstantin Gedroits, based on laboratory experiments, made two main important conclusions that serve as a theoretical basis for the optimal depth of soil cultivation:

1. On an unfertilized background, with an increase in soil volume, the yield increases, since the absolute amount

more water and food elements in a larger volume;

2. The effectiveness of fertilizers increases due to an increase in the absolute amount of water in a larger

the volume of the soil.

In the meantime, there is no need to know about it. ”

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