Post-Doctoral Fellowship: Unravelling the relationships between soil mixing uniformity by spading and crop response

Rotary spaders are increasingly being used by grain growers to incorporate surface applied soil amendments, loosen compacted layers and mix top-soil profile layers in constrained sandy soil environments. Discrete Element Method (DEM) simulations provide accurate predictions of the impact of settings and soil interactions of rotary spaders, which include operating depth, forward speed, soil condition and number of passes. This investment explores the effect of surface applied amendments and different rotary spader incorporation variables on mixing uniformity and crop response.