This study was performed in a cane field in Iran to investigate the effects of harvesting
equipment on soil compaction. The study was conducted in a factorial experiment based on
the completely randomized blocks design having three replications. Two models of bins, three
travel speeds and two tyre inflation pressures were imposed as main plots, subplots and subsubplots
respectively. Results showed that harvester traffic significantly increased soil
compaction in the 0-20 cm depth profile; however the difference of soil cone indexes before
and after bin traffic was not statistically significant. Other than 0-10 cm and 30-40 cm depth
profiles, other layers of soil were significantly affected by exerted treatments. Compaction
effect of Shaker bin was lower compared to HEPCO bin because of wider tyres and lesser
tread height. By decreasing tyre inflation pressure from 240 to 290 kPa, soil compaction
effects of bin traffic decreased. Results also showed that the effect of travel speed treatment
mostly appeared in toper layers of soil whereas the effects of bin type and inflation pressure
treatments mostly appeared in deeper layers of soil
