Recent studies clearly indicated that soil tillage is a major Factor affect
ing soil redistribution on arable land. However, existing modeling studies
of the redistribution of soil constituents by tillage are largely theoretic
al in nature due to the lack of sufficient experimental data. This paper de
scribes the results of field experiments carried out with a moldboard plow
on different slope gradients showing that an important net downslope transl
ocation and dispersion of soil constituents is associated with soil tillage
. Both translocation and dispersion are strongly affected by slope gradient
. Available experimental evidence suggests that redistribution of soil cons
tituents can be modeled by convoluting the displacement probability distrib
ution with the spatial distribution of the soil constituent. The convolutio
n model presented here was found to be superior to existing models because
it accounts for dispersion, directionality of tillage, and topogaphy. A com
parison of soil property data with model simulations indicated that soil ti
llage is a major factor when assessing the effect of erosion processes on t
he variability of soil properties.