Deep Ripping The Soil. I Cried When They Shattered My Hardpan!

Deep ripping the soil will shatter your hardpan layers.Vineyards and orchards need adequate drainage to prevent the roots from sitting in a pool of water and rotting. Building a vineyard requires a deep soil ripping process to break up compacted soil layers that can block proper drainage or prevent root access to deep moisture. Deep ripping provides an ideal environment for deep root development. Over thousands of years, soils were formed with different strata layers at different depths composed of soil, clay, sand and rock materials. These hardpan layers are an obstacle to proper moisture management and optimal root development in vineyards and orchards.

Deep ripping the soil is necessary to allow the water and roots to penetrate the hardpan layers in Northern California. Preparing a site to build an orchard or vineyard requires specially equipped heavy equipment. Local hardpan layers are usually located two to six feet below the surface in ground that has not been ripped in the past. A&L Services, Inc. uses dozers equipped with 3’ to 7’ shanks to break through the hardpan layers. The most common practice when breaking through the CA hardpan layers is to deep rip the soil in two directions with a deep ripping shank equipped with a slip plow to bring soil to the surface. A two-direction rip usually provides the optimal balance between cost and benefit. The two-direction rip process shatters the ground and brings deep soil to the top of the field. Additional passes can be beneficial, but in most situations, the additional cost involved is not warranted.

This project in Dixon CA is using a Caterpillar D8 Dozer pulling a shank with a slip plow attachment to rip the soil 6 feet deep to shatter the hard pan. The slip plow slips the soil upward from the bottom and creates a lot of deep resistance (at the bottom of the shank) that causes shattering of the hard pan layers and brings the bottom soil to the top as well as mixes the soil layers nicely. The field is ripped in two directions to achieve the maximum balance of cost and benefit for this project. If the deep ripping process was skipped, the roots would grow down about 2 feet and get stuck at the first layer of hard pan. The benefits of deep ripping this vineyard are not limited to just giving the roots more volume for growing capacity (like when you transplant a tomato plant to a larger pot), it also mixes the layers and nutrients as well as creates a larger capacity for the soil to hold water and nutrients.

Excavation contractors building a vineyard in California start with proper planning to deal with soil compaction issues and the chemistry of the soil. Before ripping process begins, the excavation contractor (link to A&L home) pot holes the field with a backhoe in a few locations to assess the depth of the hard pan layers to determine the desired ripper shank length, the number of passes, and to collect samples of soil for testing to determine the soil pH and other factors to decide if additives such as compost, pot ash, gypsum or lime are required to adjust the soil to optimum conditions for planting the vineyard. After the additions of the selected additives for soil remediation takes place and the field is ripped, the next step is to disc the field to break up the dirt clods and to continue to mix the soil with the additives. The last step for the deep ripping contractor (link to A&L deep ripping page) is to pull a triplane over the field to smooth and level the field for the trellis placement, vine planting and installation of surface irrigation. When you are ready to start planning your vineyard, give us a call for a free consultation so we can help you value engineer your project. We move the earth!

A&L Services, Inc.
36445 Co Rd 31
Davis, CA 95616
530-219-3029
https://excavationcalifornia.com/
https://excavationcalifornia.com/deep...

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