Traffic sustainability of agricultural machinery in vineyard

In the Mediterranean area, the viticulture involves a heavy tractor traffic, needed to carry out several tasks, mainly distribution of pesticides and/or herbicides. The traffic causes a remarkable soil compaction, which is one of the major problems facing modern agriculture. In particular, in the vineyards the subsoil compaction is increased; a deep tillage could certainly solve the problem, but the risk to damage heavily the plants root system is however high. In recent years, the crop evolution has led also in vineyards to the use of even more large and powerful machines, up to the modern self-propelled multifunction carrier, being this a machine able to be coupled as an alternative to several different implements, including the grape harvester or sprayer modules. The aim of this study was to investigate the trend of both the top- and the sub-soil compaction of some hillside vineyards located in Tuscany (Italy), by measuring the penetration resistance in relation to the different machine-implement combinations investigated (self-propelled machinery or narrow tractor coupled to implements). The tests started at the beginning of the growing season (early April), and then repeated approx every 6 weeks up to the grape harvesting. In the surveyed field, the inter-rows were alternatively covered with grass or tilled in the top layer during the previous wintertime. Two experimental test sets were developed: the first involved the use of two implements (a sprayer and a grape harvester) towed by narrow tractors, while in the second the pesticide distribution and the harvesting were performed with self-propelled tool carriers properly equipped. All the other farming operations were executed using identical implements in both cases. After a systematic validation through statistical analysis in order to ascertain their significance, the results of each test set were compared with those of the initial survey, thus compensating the different soil moisture content and the natural soil regeneration.