BIONÆR-Bionæringsprogram

Soils are the basis for crop production. However, soil compaction due to traffic with modern agricultural machinery is one of the major threats to soil quality. Ever increasing weights of farm machinery particularly result in compaction of the subsoil (the soil below tillage depth) in current agricultural practice. Subsoil compaction is particularly serious because it is effectively persistent. Compaction adversely affects soil ecosystem services, in particular regulating services (e.g., flood control) and production services (e.g., agricultural production), resulting in significant ecological and economic damage to farmers and society. One of the measures that would help mitigate soil compaction would be a user-friendly decision support system. Terranimo®, (https://www.terranimo.dk/) is an online decision support system for evaluation of the soil compaction risk during field traffic. However, the use of Terranimo® to plan field operations is still limited both among farmers and in the advisory services. The aim of this project is to integrate the use of Terranimo® into farmers strategic planning of field operations and investments in machinery. Terranimo® calculates the soil compaction risk by comparing soil strength and mechanical stress applied by agricultural machinery. Generally, wet soils are weaker, and the risk of soil compaction is then larger compared with a dry soil. Climate change with more rainfall before and during the time of field operations can imply more serious soil compaction. The mechanical stress is depending on many factors related to the agricultural machinery such as weight, tyres, inflation pressure, contact area etc. Data for soil type and soil moisture content as well as agricultural machinery is necessary for the model. The results from the calculation of soil strength and mechanical stress can be compared and visualised in a diagram for the different tyres on the agricultural machinery, where red colour signals that soil will be exposed for plastic deformation which implies serious compaction and green hat compaction risk is small. The five participating countries, i.e., Denmark, Italy, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, cover a north-south gradient, including different climates and hence different compaction risks, different time windows of feasibility for field operations and a gradient in the length of the growing season. In 2023, locally relevant data on machinery and soil properties for scenario studies were collected and sent to the project leader in Denmark. The data are being used together with similar data from the other participating countries to compare conditions in the participating countries and illustrate the potential of Terranimo® in different dissemination activities. Living Labs are an important part of the working method in the project and consists of repeated meetings between a group of selected farmers in Trøndelag and the project participants to discuss opportunities and limitations when using Terranimo®. The first meeting was carried out in autumn 2021. A second living lab meeting with a group of farmers and the Norwegian project participants was organised in Kvithamar on 7th February 2023 and focused on results from the SoCoRisk project so far, including weighing of agricultural machinery, and the options/possibilities in the new, improved version of Terranimo® (https://terranimo.world/). The new version integrates several of the suggestions that were discussed in the first Living lab meeting in 2021, e.g., possible use on smart phones, and more user-friendliness with simple and more advanced use options. The living lab meeting also included discussions among the participants on the way forward for the project and the use of Terranimo®. In January and February 2023, in-depth interviews were carried out with selected farmers about the potential use of Terranimo® on their farms. On 24th October 2023, the Norwegian partners of the SoCoRisk project conducted a webinar with 37 participants about Terranimo® as a decision support tool to avoid soil compaction on farms, where results from the project were included.

Ever increasing weights of farm machinery particularly result in compaction of the subsoil (the soil below tillage depth) – subsoil compaction is particularly serious because it is effectively persistent. Compaction adversely affects soil ecosystem services, in particular regulating services (e.g. flood control) and production services (e.g. agricultural production), resulting in significant ecological and economic damage to farmers and society. The aim of this project is to integrate the use of Terranimo®, a decision support tool for prevention of soil compaction, into farmer’s strategic planning. We will use a broad approach involving soil scientists, agronomists, and social scientists as well as farmers, contractors, advisers and representatives from authorities. In particular, end-users, i.e. farmers, will have a central role – we will select 4 to 5 farms as case studies in each of the five participating countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, and Italy). Within living labs, we will address potentials and barriers of using Terranimo along a north-south gradient in Europe, and for a range of farming systems. Based on the identified barriers and potentials, we will develop new ways of using Terranimo® for farmers’decisions. The ambition is to improve farmers’ day-to-day planning of field operations, including hiring of contractors with their respective machinery, but also, to enable strategic planning of investments in new machinery and adjustments to crop rotations based on identification of critical field operations. An immediate output from this project is an improved use of Terranimo by farmers to reduce the risk of soil compaction. In a long-term perspective, the improved awareness and sensitivity to soil compaction problems due to Terranimo decision support may result in a better alignment of crop rotations and farm machinery to sitespecific conditions and may change the design and development of machinery to reduce their negative impact on soil.