Land imprinting

Land imprinting refers to the practice of pressing a series of shallow v-shaped impressions into soil, especially for the purpose of reclaiming desertified or degraded land. These effects are intended to help conserve soil and water, and restore ground cover to denuded soil.

Imprinters consist of a simple rolling cylinder attached to a towing frame. Steel v-shaped teeth are welded to the cylinder to press into the ground surface, creating many shallow impressions about 12 in. (20 cm.) square and perhaps four inches (10 cm.) deep. The teeth are staggered to avoid forming trenches. The frame may be towed behind a tractor or pulled up and down steep slopes by cable.

The resulting impressions have several intended effects: they break any surface crust on the soil, allowing water and air to enter more easily; they help prevent water run-off and resulting soil erosion; they create micro-watersheds that concentrate available rainfall in the bottoms of the impressions; and they help capture and hold seeds and wind-blown plant litter. These varied effects contribute to revegetation success.

Imprinting has particular characteristics that make it useful for certain applications. Imprinting is most useful for areas with sealed crusts, and less useful for sandy soils, where rain and wind can undo the imprinting work. Second, the compaction created by imprinting may be more beneficial to grasses than shrubs. Lastly, imprinting is less visually intrusive than contour terraces, contour furrowing or pitting.

http://imprinting.org/nutsandbolts.html

http://www.westernecology.com/pdfs/bainbridgebook.pdf