Soil Tillage Implements and Machinery
Ploughing is an essential activity that needs to be done to make the soil more productive. Farmers use different types of soil tillage equipment to plough the soil. Ploughing mostly is done in two steps primary and secondary – that includes loosening of the soil, removing weeds and creating seedbed. Various types of equipment are used in preparing the soil for planting seeds.
Although modern no-till farming techniques have reduced the need for routine ploughing in spring and fall season, as chemical weed killers are used on fields that relatively clean the last season’s residue. In some cases, seeds are directly placed into the field using no-till seed drills. Here we have mentioned mostly used farm equipment in the soil preparation.
Plough
When it comes to turning a thickly sodded ground into a seedbed, the plough is the best machinery to start with. The plough pulverizes the soil, exposing it to air and light, two essential natural ingredients for normal plant growth. The plough inverts the clod in the soil and covers and mixes trash like corn stalks and manure with the soil to decay and give plant food.
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Mould-Board Plough
For many farmers, a moldboard plough is a vital tool in soil maintenance. It is used to prepare the soil before planting seeds. The plough is very useful if you want to prepare the soil for grass seeding. The mould-board plough consists of a) large curved bottom, called mouldboard that is affixed to a frame, B) shears located on the bottom edge of the mouldboard and, c) large curved wings found on the top edge. It slices through the top layers of the soil and reworks soil composition thoroughly. This plough automatically seeks the desired ploughing depth.
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Subsoiler
The ploughed soil needs to have good contact with the subsoil to ease the reach of moisture. The subsoilers are specially used for breaking up the hardpan layers and loosening the subsoil to allow better drainage, root growth and mineral osmosis.
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Rotary Tiller
A rotary tiller which is also popularly known as rotavator, uses a set of curved blades attached to a rotating shaft that takes power from tractor’s PTO to dig into the soil, churn it into a fine and essentially clod-free seedbed. One of the significant advantages of using a rotavator is that the working depth can be adjusted as per the requirement. For a large farm, a farmer would need a larger size of the rotary tiller as the larger the tiller the greater is the working depth. However, even on a large farm, tilling the soil to a depth up to 6 inches should be sufficient.
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