(edited)Machinery
I have done some testing in the same field over the past few years and am noticing a yield difference on our traffic lanes. That's no surprise. I'm wondering who the biggest offender is. This is our equipment. 7240 case tractor with duals, pulling a kinze 3600 12r30 dry fertilizer box planter. Side dress is an 4430 with 200 gallon saddle tanks duals, pulling an Adams 13r applicator 1100 gallon tank (half rate nozzles on each end so covering same 12 rows as planter). I know the sprayer is doing damage it's 90' and every third Lane is significantly worse.
We have a 6r30 combine. I harvested on the guess row to find my results. The middle 6 rows had all the traffic, and the outside rows only had the 1 tire track from the planter. With out including the sprayer passes, the traffic lanes are on average 9 Bu/Ac off the passes with out traffic. And that's on 50% of our corn ground.
I wanted to see what u guys thought. I'm going to get a soil compactometer and do more diligent testing as soon as I can. Is it the tractor or the planter?
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I haven't done near the research you have, but I read an article a while back that would lead me to tell you to drill down even further and study the row on each side which runs between the duals. I am guessing with an 1100 gallon side dress rig its tires are on 120" and not 60 so the weight of the tractor compacts the inside of the row and the applicator compresses the other side of the row and ...