🚋 Tillage Implements

Primary Tillage Implements

• The initial major soil working operations designed to plough the soil deeply to reduce soil strength, cover plant materials and rearrange aggregates is called primary tillage.
• Tractor draws implements include mould-board ploughs, disc ploughs, heavy duty disk harrows, subsoiler, chisel ploughs etc.

Ploughs

• Plough was invented during 2900 BC.
• The main implement which is used for primary tillage is Plough used for ploughing operations.
• Ploughing is the primary tillage operation which is performed to cut, break and invert the soil partially or completely.
• Iron plough was invented by James Small.
• Normal ploughing under primary tillage operation is usually done up to 15 cm depth.
• Vertical suction/clearance: Adjustment for depth control in M.B. plough.
• Horizontal suction/Side clearance: This suction helps M.B. plough to cut the proper width of furrow slice.
• Through clearance: It is perpendicular distance between point of share and lower position of the beam of the plough.
• Pull: total force required to pull an implements.
• Draft: Horizontal component of the pull, parallel to line of motion.
• Side draft: Horizontal component of the pull, perpendicular to line of motion.
• Unit draft: Draft per unit area.
• Effective field capacity: It is the actual area covered by implements, based on its total time consumed and its width (ha/hr).
• Theoretical field capacity: It is the theoretical area covered by implements, based on its total time consumed and its width (ha/hr).
• Field Efficiency = (Effective field capacity/Theoretical field capacity) x 100
• Soil pulverization is quality of work in terms of soil aggregates and clod size. This is measured by Penetrometer.
• Cohesion: Force of attraction between similar particles.(e.g. soil and soil)
• Adhesion: Force of attraction between dissimilar particles (e.g. soil and metal)
• Gathering: Whenever a plough works round a strip of ploughed land, it is said to be gathering.
• Casting: Whenever a plough works round a strip of un-ploughed land, it is said to be casting.

  

• Certain important terms related with ploughing of land:
  • Furrow: A trench formed by an implement in the soil during the field operation.
  • Furrow slice: The mass of soil cut, lifted and thrown to one side.
  • Furrow wall: An undisturbed soil surface by the side of a furrow.
• Crown: The top portion of the turned furrow slice.
• Back furrow: A raised ridge left at the centre of the strip of land when ploughing is started from centre to side.
• Dead furrow: An open trench left in between two adjacent strips of land after finishing the ploughing.

Types of plough

👉🏻 The different type of ploughs are as follows:

• Indigenous plough
• Mould board plough
• Disc plough
• Chisel plough
• Sub soiler
• Rotary plough

List of Primary Tillage Implements

Country Plough (Indigenous Plough)

• Main parts of a plough:
  • Body
  • Share
  • Shoe
  • Beam
  • Handle
• Body: It is the main frame to which the shoe, beam and handle are attached.
• Share: It is a narrow steel bar attached to the upper surface of the shoe longitudinally along the centre line and the handle are generally attached to the body of the plough.
• Types:
  • Slip share
  • Slip nose
  • Shin
  • Bar point
• Material of Share: The shares are made of chilled cast iron or steel. The steel mainly contains about 0.70 to 0.80% carbon and about 0.50 to 0.80% manganese besides other minor elements.
• Shoe: The share is attached to the shoe which penetrates into the soil and breaks it open. The shoe also helps in stabilizing and balancing the plough while in operation.
• The plough is provided with a wooden beam and a handle.
• Important points:
  • It is an animal drawn plough.
  • It penetrates into the soil and breaks it open. It forms V shaped furrows with 15-20 cm top width and 12-15 cm depth.
  • It can be used for ploughing in dry land, garden land and wetlands.
  • The size of the plough is represented by the width of the body and the field capacity is around 0.4 ha per day of 8 hours.
  • Working efficiency of desi plough is 0.32 hp/day.

Sub Soiler

• All plough and Sub-soiler (open up hard span below 40 cm depth) are the primary tillage implements.
• Infiltration of soil is with hard pan can be increased by subsoiling.
• Sub soiler works up to the depth of 45 - 75 cm.

Mould Board Plough

• Mould board is an implement which is used for ploughing. ^AFO-2021
• Mould Board ploughs are available for animals, power tiller and tractor operation.
• While working, a mould board plough does four jobs namely:
  • Cutting the furrow slice
  • Lifting the furrow slice
  • Inverting the furrow slice and
  • Pulverizing the furrow slices
• Capacity 1.5-2.0 ha/day.

Disc Plough

• It is a plough which cuts, turns and in some cases breaks furrow slices by means of separately mounted large steel discs.
• A disc plough is designed with a view to reduce friction by making a rolling plough bottom instead of sliding plough bottom.
• Disc plough is used for primary tillage and it is specially used where M.B. Plough is not useful such as hard and dry soil.
• In some model disc plough is designed to operate as 2, 3 or 4 bottoms, by adding or removing sub beams the sub beam assemblies according to requirement.
• Disc: It is a circular, Vertical Disc plough revolving steel plate used for cutting and inverting the soil.

  

• Disc angle:
  • It is the angle at which the plane of the cutting edge of the disc is inclined to the direction of travel.
  • Usually the disc angle of good plough varies between 42 to 45°.
• Width of cut of plough is increases by increasing disc angle.
• Tilt angle:
  • It is the angle at which the plane of the cutting edge of the disc is inclined to a vertical line.
  • The tilt angle varies from 15° to 25° for a good plough.
• Scraper: It is device to remove the soil that tend to stick to the working surface of disc.

Secondary Tillage Implements

• Tillage operations performed after primary tillage to create proper soil tilth for seeding and planting are called secondary tillage.
• These operations are lighter and finer operations performed on the soil after primary tillage operations.
• Harrows, cultivators, sweeps, cloud crushers, levelers, bund formers, puddlers, roller and hoes are come under secondary tillage implements.

Harrow

• A harrow is an implement that cuts the soil to a shallow depth for smoothening and pulverizing the soil as well as to cut the weeds and to mix materials with soil.
• It is an implement used to break the clods after ploughing, to collect trash from the ploughed land and to level the seed bed.
• Harrow is used for harrowing, which is a secondary tillage operation, which pulverizes, smoothens and packs the soil in seed bed preparation and to control weeds.
• Types of harrows used in India
  • Disc harrow
  • Spring tooth harrow
  • Spike tooth harrow
  • Blade harrow (Bakhar)
  • Triangular harrow
  • Zig-zag harrow
  • Bodela
  • Guntaka
  • Bindha
  • Rotary tiller
  • Other harrows

Disc Harrow

• It is a harrow, which performs the harrowing operation by means of a set of rotating discs, each set being mounted on a common shaft.
• Disc harrow is found very suitable for hard ground with full of stalks and grasses.
• It cuts the lumps of soil, clods and roots.
• Types of disc harrows:
  • Depending upon the source of power, disc harrows are of two types:
  • Tractor drawn (depending upon the disc arrangements, disc harrows are divided into two classes — Single action and Double disc.
  • Animal drawn

    

• Single action disc harrow: Harrow with two gangs placed end to end which throws the soil in opposite directions.
• Double action disc harrow:
  • A disc harrow containing two or more gangs, in which a set of one or two gangs follow behind the set of the other one or two, arranged in such a way that the front and back gangs throw the soil in opposite directions.
  • Thus the entire field is worked twice in each strip.
  • It maybe of two types: Tandem and off-set.
• Tandem Disc Harrow
• Off-set Disc harrow
• Parts of Disc Harrow:
  • Disc: Concave disc 35-70 cm diameter
  • Gang: It is an assembly of concave discs mounted on a common shaft with spools in between.
  • Spool or Spacer: The flanged tube, mounted on the gang axle between every two discs to retain them at fixed position laterally on the shaft is called Spool or Spacer.
  • The other parts are Gang bolt, Gang angle, Gang control lever, Spools or Spacer, Bearings, Transport wheels, Scraper and Weight Box.
• Tractor drawn harrow has a capacity of 2.5 ha/day.

Power harrow – tractor drawn

• A power harrow tills the soil maintaining the same profile of the field.
• It pulverizes the upper and lower layer of soil without turning them upside down and thus it forms a good seed bed as well as good soil mulch.
• It consists of two horizontal cross bars fitted with rigid pegs which reciprocate taking power from the PTO of a tractor.
• The pegs are spaced 200 mm wide and are staggered with respect to each cross bar.
• The two bars move in opposite directions and hence the implement is dynamically balanced.
• The oscillating pegs break the clods and pulverizes the soil to a fine tilth.
• The width of the operation is 2000 mm and the field capacity is around 1.5 ha/day.

Rotary Tiller (Rotavator)

• The rotary tiller or rotary cultivator is widely considered as the most important implement as it provides fine degree of soil pulverization.
• It is directly mounted to the tractor and operated.
• The rotor is operated at 180 – 200 rpm.
• Capacity is 0.5 ha/hr.
• Types of blades used in rotary tillers
  • ‘L’ type blade: Works well in trashy conditions. More effective in cutting weeds and but do not pulverize the soil much.
  • Twisted blade: Suitable for deep tillage in relatively clean grounds, but clogging and wrapping of trashes on the tynes and shafts needs frequent cleaning.
  • Straight blade: Employed on mulchers designed mainly for secondary tillage.
• The benefits of the rotary tiller are:
  • effective pulverization of soil ensures good plant growth
  • cutting and mixing of stubbles and roots and mixing with soil and
  • leveling of the field

Other Important Implements

• Basin lister: Prevent runoff and form basins.

• Sweep cultivator: Harvesting groundnut and used in stubble mulching.

• Potato digger: Used to harvest potatoes

• Groundnut digger: Used to harvest groundnut.

• Maize Sheller: Used to separate maize grains from cobs.

  

• Seed dressing drum: Used to treat the seed with chemicals.

  

• Hand gin: Used to separate lint from seed cotton.

  

• No-till planter: Used for sowing. ^{AFO 2017}