BAHIR DAR UNIVERSITY
BAHIR DAR INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
FACULTY OF MECHANICAL AND INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING
Course: Farm Power and Machinery
Chapter Three: Tillage
By: Yabebal Chekole (MSc.)
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Chapter Two
➢ What is tillage?
➢ Objectives of tillage
➢ Primary tillage and implements
➢ Secondary tillage and implements
➢ Tillage systems
➢ Methods of ploughing
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What is tillage?
➢ Tillage is the mechanical manipulation of soil to bring about desired
changes in the physical, chemical, and biological qualities of the soil
in order to enable optimal seed germination, plant seedling growth,
and increasing plant growth and development.
➢ The objective of tillage is:
❖ To obtain deep seed bed, suitable for different type of crops
❖ To add more humus and fertility to soil by covering the vegetation
❖ To destroy and prevent weeds
❖ To aerate the soil for proper growth of crops
❖ To increase water-absorbing capacity of the soil
❖ To destroy the insects, pests and their breeding places and
❖ To reduce the soil erosion
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Primary tillage
➢ The initial major soil working operation designed to plough the soil
deeply.
➢ The objectives of primary tillage are
❖ To reduce soil strength
❖ To rearrange aggregates
❖ To cover plant materials and burry weeds
❖ To kill insects and pests
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Primary tillage implements
➢ Traditional/ Arda plough
➢ Mouldboard plough
➢ Disk plough/ Tiller
➢ Subsoil plough
➢ Chisel plough
➢ Rotary plough/ Tiller
➢ Stubble-mulch plows and Tillers
➢ Listers, and
➢ Bedders
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Mouldboard plough
➢ Its primary functions are to cut the furrow slice, shatter the soil, and
invert the furrow slice to cover plant residue.
➢ They are the most common implement used for primary tillage, but
they are never used for secondary tillage.
➢ They are usually equipped with adjustments to ensure that the plow is
level in the longitudinal and lateral directions and that the plow bottom
is oriented with the landside parallel to the direction of travel.
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➢ Share: penetrates into the soil and makes a horizontal cut below the
soil surface. It is a sharp, well polished and pointed component.
➢ Land side: It is the flat plate which bears against and transmits
lateral thrust of the plough bottom to the furrow wall.
➢ It helps to resist the side pressure exerted by the furrow slice on the
mouldboard. It also helps in stabilizing the plough while it is in
operations.
➢ Frog: is that part of the plough bottom to which the other
components of the plough bottom are attached.
➢ It is an irregular piece of metal. It may be made of cast iron for cast
iron ploughs or it may be welded steel for steel ploughs.
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➢ Mouldboard: part of the plough which receives the furrow slice
from the share. It lifts, turns and breaks the furrow slice.
➢ To suit different soil conditions and crop requirements, mouldboard
has been designed in different shapes.
Stubble type It is short but broader mouldboard. Its curvature
is not gradual but it is abrupt along the top edge.
General It is a mouldboard having medium curvature
purpose type lying between stubble and sod.
Slatted type It is a mouldboard whose surface is made of slats
placed along the length of the mouldboard, so
that there are gaps between the slats.
Sod or Breaker It is a long mouldboard with gentle curvature
type which lifts and inverts the unbroken furrow slice.
It is used in tough soil of grasses.
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Disk 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 of reduce friction by making a
rolling plough bottom instead of sliding plough bottom.
➢ A disc plough works well in the conditions where mouldboard plough
does not work satisfactorily such as in hard, dry soils, and in sticky
soils where a moldboard plow will not scour.
➢ The soil penetration ability of a disk plow depends upon disk
diameter, tilt angle, and disk angle.
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Subsoil plough
➢ Used to break through and shatter compacted or otherwise impermeable
soil layers and to improve rainfall penetration.
➢ They have heavy standards that can be operated at depths of 45 to 75 cm or
more.
➢ Subsoilers do very little soil mixing and no soil inversion.
➢ They are most effective under dry and firm soil conditions.
➢ A subsoiling operation is usually followed by another primary tillage
operation before secondary tillage is begun.
➢ Subsoilers have heavy frame and standards for protection during impact
with buried rocks.
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Chisel plough
➢ It is an implement designed for primary tillage at depths from 15 to 46 cm.
➢ They shatter, mix, and aerate the soil with little soil inversion.
➢ They leave a rough soil surface with most of the plant residue remaining
uncovered.
➢ Also used to break through and shatter compacted or otherwise
impermeable soil layers.
➢ The improved soil structure also results in better development of root
system and the yield of crops and their drought tolerance is also improved.
➢ Similar to subsoiler plough except it has no gauge wheel.
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Rotary plough/ tillers
➢ Also called power tillers or rotavators because the power is transferred to
the tiller from the tractor via the power-take-off (PTO) drive.
➢ It is a farming equipment used for preparing soil before planting seeds.
➢ Its rotating blades are attached to either the rear or front of the body to cut
the clods of the soil.
➢ Total power requirements for rotary tillers are generally higher than for
conventional plows.
➢ However, one rotary tillage operation may be equivalent to several
conventional tillage operations as far as the quality of the seed bed is
concerned.
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Secondary tillage
➢ Lighter and finer tillage operations performed in the soil after
primary tillage to create proper soil tilth and surface configuration for
seeding and planting.
➢ Secondary tillage operations are generally done on the surface soil.
➢ They do not cause much soil inversion and shifting of soil from one
place to other.
➢ The main objectives of secondary tillage are
❖ To break the big clods
❖ To make the soil surface uniform and leveled as needed
❖ To destroy grasses and weeds in the field
❖ To cut crop residues and mix them with top soil
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Secondary tillage implements
➢ Cultivators
➢ Disk harrow
➢ Spring tine harrows
➢ Spike tooth harrows
➢ Rotary hoes
➢ Planks
➢ Rollers
➢ Culti-packer
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Cultivators
➢ Used to stirs the soil, and breaks the clods. Generally its function is:
1. Interculture the fields
2. Destroy the weeds in the field
3. Aerate the soil for proper growth of crops
4. Conserve moisture by preparing mulch on the surface
5. To sow seeds when it is provided with sowing attachments
6. To prevent surface evaporation and encourage rapid infiltration of rain water
into the soil
➢ It is three type: field cultivators, row crop cultivators, and rotary
cultivators.
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Field cultivators
➢ Used for seedbed preparation. They are similar to chisel plows in
appearance but they operate at much shallower depths.
➢ Field cultivators may be either mounted or pull type with wheels for
depth control.
➢ Some very large units are designed to be folded while transporting.
The lateral tine spacing may vary from 15 to 30 cm.
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Row crop cultivators
➢ They have the tines spaced to go between the crop rows.
➢ They are used for cultivation and weed control operations during the
active growth period of crops planted in rows.
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Rotary cultivator
➢ They are not powered and designed to operate at shallow depth and
are used for weed control in row crops, breaking soil crests for better
seedling emergence, and mixing of fertilizer.
➢ It have spiders similar to rotary hoes but the teeth are twisted and the
ends are shaped like chisels. This creates a sideways movement of the
soil.
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Harrows
➢ Harrow is a secondary tillage 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 the materials with the soil.
➢ There are several types of harrow.
❖ Disc harrow
❖ Spike tooth harrow
❖ Tine tooth harrows
❖ Spring tooth harrow
❖ Acme harrow
❖ Patela
❖ Triangular harrow
❖ Others like blade harrow and reciprocating power harrow
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Disk harrow
➢ They are differ from disk plows in that there is no tilt angle and several
blades are mounted on a common axis called the gang.
➢ They are lighter and have smaller wheels than disk tillers. It should be
noted that the gangs are always in pairs with opposite disk orientation to
balance the side draft produced by each disk.
➢ Disk harrows may be either mounted or pull type.
➢ Smaller units tend to be mounted while larger units tend to be pull type
with wheels for transportation.
➢ In disk harrows, the gang may be arranged in different configurations like
single-action, offset, or tandem.
➢ The disk may be plain disc or cut away disc.
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Spike tooth harrow
➢ It is a harrow with peg shaped teeth of diamond cross section to a
rectangular frame.
➢ It is used to break the clod, stir the soil, uproot the weeds, level the
ground, break the soil and cover the seeds.
➢ Its principle is to smoothen and level the soil directly after ploughing.
➢ Spike tooth harrows may be of rigid type and flexible type.
➢ Tractor drawn harrows are usually flexible type. It has got the
advantage of being turned up for transporting purpose.
➢ This harrow mainly consists of teeth, tooth bar frame, clamps, guard,
braces, levers and hooks.
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Tine-tooth harrows
➢ Use spring tines that create additional action for soil breakup.
➢ The tines are closely spaced, about 3.8 to 5 cm apart, compared to
spikes in spike tooth harrows.
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Spring tooth harrow
➢ It is a harrow with tough flexible teeth, suitable to work in hard and
stony soils.
➢ It is fitted with springs having loops of elliptical shape to give the
harrow a spring action in working condition.
➢ It is used in the soil when obstruction like stone, roots and weeds are
hidden below the ground surface.
➢ This type pulverizes the soil and helps in killing weeds.
➢ The levers are provided for setting the teeth for varying the depth of
harrowing.
➢ For light harrowing, the adjustment is done in slanting position.
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Tillage systems
➢ Conventional tillage: incorporates or buries most of the crop residue
into the soil. Typically this approach involves multiple passes in fields.
➢ Since this method plows under much of the crop stubble, it leaves the
surface relatively bare and without cover protection.
➢ Conservation tillage: tillage that retains most of the crop residue on
the surface and involves minimal tillage.
➢ Some straw, stubble, leaves, and other residue are visible on the
surface.
➢ Zero till or no till: direct seeding of crops into crop residue/soil.
➢ The no-till approach avoids any mechanical tillage of the soil and
attempts to keep soil disturbance to an absolute minimum.
➢ It can involve just only one pass through the fields for planting.
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➢ Conventional tillage system:
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➢ Conservation tillage system/minimum or reduced, mulch, strip, ridge
➢ The purposes of conservation tillage practices:
❖ Prevention of accelerated erosion
❖ Increasing the ground resistance to destruction by wind and water
❖ Stimulation of soil restoration
❖ Increasing the fertility of eroded lands
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➢ Zero till or no till system:
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Methods of ploughing
➢ Gathering: plough works round a strip of ploughed land.
➢ Casting: plough works round a strip of unploughed land.
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Round and round ploughing
➢ In this method, the plough moves round and round a field.
➢ This system is adopted under conditions where ridges and furrows
interfere with cultivation work.
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One way ploughing
➢ This system requires the use of a special type of plough known as
reversible plough or one way plough.
➢ Such a plough turns furrows to the left or right.
➢ After the headland has been marked, the operator plough along a
straight side land mark.
➢ At the end of the first trip, he turns his tractor in a loop and returns
down the same furrow.
➢ No dead and back furrows are left in the field and in gently sloping
fields, this method is suitable.
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Thank you!
Any question?
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