Soil compression is one of the major causes of soil degradation. Adding organic materials to the soil can improve soil structure and help to retain water in the soil. Plant residue is known as the least expensive, most abundant and available organic matters for incorporating into the soil. One of the common solutions to prevent soil compaction is to estimate the soil stress at its compaction threshold (pre-compaction stress, s pc ) and the soil sensitivity to more compaction (compression index, C c ) if the applied stress level is higher than its s pc value. In this research, disturbed soil samples were taken from clay loam topsoil (0- 20 cm soil layer) from a long-term (7-year) residue management under barley-corn rotation. Repacked soil samples taken from four residue management treatments (residue burning, Res B ; residue incorporation, Res; residue incorporation with urea application, Res N; residue incorporation with farmyard manure application, Res FYM ) were prepared at two water contents (14.7 and 16.7%; equivalent to 0.9 plastic limit, PL and 1.05 PL, respectively) and two preloads (100 and 200 kPa). Then, the compressive properties (s pc , C c ) were obtained using plate sinkage test (PST) and confined compression test (CCT). Stress-sinkage and stress-strain curves were drawn for both PST and CCT, respectively. For each curve, three different methods were considered to determine the s pc . These methods were: (1) Casagrande, (2) maximum curvature and (3) intersection of virgin compression line and x axis. Soil shear strength parameters (cohesion, c and internal friction angle, f ) were measured using a direct shear box test. The percentage of organic matter of two treatments (Res Res N ) was not significantly different than the residue burning treatment, whereas in Res FYM treatment, the organic matter significantly increased by 39%. In PST, the maximum and minimum values of ? pc were obtained with Casagrande and maximum curvature methods, respectively. In CCT, the maximum values of ? pc were achieved with Casagrande method while for 100 and 200 kPa preload, stresses, the minimum values were obtained with maximum curvature and intersection of virgin compression line and x axis methods, respectively. In both tests (PST CCT), when the ? pc values were estimated by Casagrande method, a larger overestimation was observed at 14.7% water content compared with 16.7%. The results indicated that with a 100 Keywords: Pre-compaction stress, compression index, shear strength, residue management, cohesion, internal friction angle