Tramline (agriculture)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tractor spraying and driving on a tramline
Delayed ripening in the tramlines of this barley field

The tramline is the part of the field that is repeatedly used for maintenance measures while the crop is growing.

Most of the time, the strips that are driven in are not sown in order to save seeds. In the case of grain fields, for example, hardly any grain plants are damaged by tires. Damage usually means that these plants lag behind in growth and thus cause problems during threshing due to their moisture.

Tramlines are usually laid out in parallel at a distance of 10 to 36 meters. This mainly depends on the devices available in the company. Field sprayers and fertilizer spreaders in particular determine the distance between the tramlines via their working widths. Usually, when sowing, one starts with half the tramline distance (i.e. 5-18 meters depending on the farm, see above) from the edge. A tramline is also created on the headland . Then, parallel to the longer side of the field, the remaining tracks are laid at a distance of the full width of the tramline.

Since around the year 2000 there has been an increasing use of standard tires instead of narrow maintenance tires. This reduces ground pressure and extends the period of drivability significantly.

It can be problematic if cereal crops recover after being driven over. These plants no longer manage to be ripe for the rest of the area at the time of harvest. This leads to mechanically induced harvest difficulties or to incalculable moisture levels due to the green straw.

Standard lane procedure

The standard lane method or Controlled Traffic Farming (CTF) is a method in which exactly the same lane is used every year. With the help of DGPS and adapted machine working widths and track widths, the field is divided into traffic and non-traffic zones. The background is that loosening the tramlines and thus restoring the soil is costly and does not always bring the desired success. In the long term, there should be an improvement in the soil structure and thus an increase in yield.

Web links

Commons : Tramlines  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. AgroKlima Bayern - technology for controlled traffic farming (CTF) .