Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2020 December 25

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

December 25

Strange field markings

I'm stumped. What are the strange lines in the Google satellite images of the fields around "55.677787, -1.909580"? They're ovbiously multiple vehicle (tractor?) tracks, as evinced by the arcs between them, but why in those odd patterns and widths?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 16:30, 25 December 2020 (UTC) (edited)

@Shantavira: Which lines? Your coordinates are [1]. I just see green. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:45, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Sorry the first digit got lost. Now corrected.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 17:42, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

If you go to Street View, they look like portions of the field which haven't been harvested yet. 18:23, 25 December 2020 (UTC)←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→

Kind of. Do note, however, that the street view and satellite images may be taken years apart. Looking at the surrounding fields in the satellite pics, it sure looks like the fields are not being harvested in the normal manner and some of the unharvested ones appear very uneven (for example, immediately south of the OP's coordinates). My guess is that the harvest in this area complicated by flooding or some other factor which left parts of the fields unusable, forcing the farmers to harvest in this unusual manner. Matt Deres (talk) 20:53, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, they can be. Given the standing water visible on the street view, you may be onto the explanation. It's somewhere southeast of Edinburgh, so maybe one of our Scottish users might know something? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:51, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, they might, but that location is actually in England. --174.95.161.129 (talk) 10:12, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

True. Historically, the area changed hands between the Kingdoms of Scotland and England more than a dozen times, until finally coming under English administration in 1482 but formally only fully statutorily annexed by the Wales and Berwick Act 1746. Berwick was actually the oldest Scottish royal burgh. To these days some locals see themselves in their hearts as Scots living under colonial rule.  --Lambiam 13:25, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Border town where Scottish independence is another dividing line. Alansplodge (talk) 16:32, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

The flooding hypothesis seems plausible, a close look shows a tractor track skirting around the top of the grey area. Possibly the broad tracks were made by some type of harrow in an attempt to break-up the surface and improve drainage? Alansplodge (talk) 16:29, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

I think there's one final piece of the jigsaw to put in place, to give a probable explanation for the markings. I agree that a farmer's attempt to alleviate poor drainage is a likely explanation for these markings. The Streetview images show that surface water accumulates in the areas where the markings can be seen. Flooding like this can kill arable crops, resulting in the bare patches seen in the satellite images. It's notable that the bare areas of the fields are all connected by the machinery markings in a way resembling a drainage catchment area, and if the images are inspected carefully, at the highest magnification, it can be seen that where the markings approach the roadside, a single dark line, looking like a narrow trench, can be seen extending into the roadside ditch. I believe this line is a subsoil drainage channel, produced by either a subsoiler or mole plough (such as shown in this video and this video), and then afterwards the farmer has indeed gone over the deep line of the subsoiler with a harrow or similar implement, to smooth out the surface soil disruption so that a crop can be sown. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 10:53, 27 December 2020 (UTC)