Cotton growers began to realise in the late 1970's that compaction of clay soils may have been a cause of declining yields. Research over the last 10 years has confirmed those suspicions.

SOILpak is a soil management manual for cotton growing on cracking clays. It leads you through the decision-making process to a number of options. The manual presents options rather than hard-and-fast rules.

Ripping (deep soil working ) can give conflicting responses. Sometimes it i ncreases cotton yields and other times it de creases cotton yields.

Throughout this article I will be encouraging less tillage. There are three reasons for this. Firstly, tillage is costly. Secondly, soil structure often is sufficiently good for farming without tillage.