Forward straw displacement was measured using tracers in the longitudinal,
tangential and lateral orientations with respect to the tillage
direction. The tillage operations consisted of three parallel passes at a
speed of 0.1 m s−1. It was found that the forward straw displacement
measured using a longitudinal tracer was smaller than that measured
using a lateral tracer for straw longer than 100 mm. The longer the
straw, the larger the displacement observed. However, no significant differences
were found, except for the straw length of 250 mm. Lateral
straw distribution indicates how the straw will be redistributed after a
specific tillage operation (Munir et al., 2012). However, one potential setback
of using a moldboard plow is that the implement tends to cut both
the residue and the soil. This effect pulls and pushes the residue and the
soil, lifting, moving and burying them, thus possibly diminishing the efficiency
of straw incorporation and producing poor traction performance
(Eltom et al., 2015).