NAME: ABDU BABANGIDA

REG. NO: 2015/06/AGE/158 C/O

COURSE CODE: AGE 215

COURSE TITLE: FARM POWER AND

MACHINARY

QUESTION

Discuss The Following Primary Tillage Implement: Disc Plough, Subsoilers and
Rotary Tillers

ANSWER

Tillage is normally classified as primary or secondary tillage. While soil puddling

can be classified as a secondary tillage its primary purpose is to restrict water
movement from the surface layers. It is a mechanical manipulation of soil to
provide favourable condition for crop production. Soil tillage consists of breaking
the compact surface of earth to a certain depth and to loosen the soil mass, so as to
enable the roots of the crops to penetrate and spread into the soil.

Objectives of Tillage

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.

PRIMARY TILLAGE:
Primary tillage is the first soil tillage after the last harvest. It is normally
conducted when the soil is wet enough to allow plowing and strong enough to give
reasonable levels of traction. This can be immediately after the crop harvest or at
the beginning of the next wet season. When there is sufficient power available
some soil types are ploughed dry. It constitutes the initial major soil working
operation. It is normally designed to reduce soil strength, cover plant materials and
rearrange aggregates. The operations performed to open up any cultivable land
with a view to prepare a seed bed for growing crops is known as primary tillage.
Animal drawn implements mostly include indigenous plough and mould-board
plough. Tractor drawn implements include mould-board plough, disc plough,
subsoil plough, chisel plough and other similar implements.
 
The objectives of primary tillage are:
 to attain a reasonable depth (10-15 cm) of soft soil with varying clod
sizes;
 kill weeds by burying or cutting and exposing the roots
 soil aeration and water accumulation; depending on the soil type and the
plough the soil will normally be inverted aerating the deep layers and
trapping water during a rainfall event
 chop and incorporate crop residues.
The implement most commonly used with an animal powered system is
the moldboard plows. In clay soils, the fields often have to be fully saturated
before tillage can be undertaken. In lighter texture soils such as loam or sand,
tillage can be undertaken at moisture levels below field capacity.
In 2-wheel powered systems both moldboard and disc ploughs (one-way disc)are
used. The disc is usually the preferred system as it takes less power and can
handle obstacles much easier.
In a 4-wheel tractor system, three-disc, seven-disc and offset ploughs are the
most common. Tined plows are preferable in the upland systems but as yet not
widely available in Asia.
TYPES OF TILLAGE:
 Minimum Tillage - It is the minimum soil manipulation necessary to meet
tillage requirements for crop production.
 Strip Tillage - It is a tillage system in which only isolated bands of soil are
tilled.
 Rotary Tillage -It is the tillage operations employing rotary action to cut,
break and mix the soil.
 Mulch Tillage -It is the preparations of soil in such a way that plant
residues or other mulching materials are specially left on or near the
surface.
 Combined Tillage -Operations simultaneously utilizing two or more
different types of tillage tools or implements to simplify, control or reduce
the number of operations over a field are called combined tillage.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TOOLS/IMPLEMENTS/MACHINES
TOOL - It is an individual working element such as disc or shovel.
Implement - It is equipment generally having no driven moving parts, such as
harrow or having only simple mechanism such as plough. Machine -It is a
combination of rigid or resistant bodies having definite motions and capable
of performing useful work.

IMPLEMENTS FOR PRIMARY TILLAGE

Plough :Ploughing is the primary tillage operations, which are performed to
cut, break and invert the soil partially or completely. Ploughing essentially
means opening the upper crust of the soil, breaking the clods and making the
soil suitable for sowing seeds.

Country or Indigenous plough: It penetrates into the soil and breaks it open.
The functional components include share, body, shoe, handle and beam .It
can be used for dry land, garden land and wetland ploughing operations.

Share :It is the working part of the plough attached to the shoe with which it
penetrates into the soil and breaks it open.

Shoe - It supports and stabilizes the plough at the required depth.

Body - It is main part of the plough to which the shoe, beam and handle are
generally attached. In country plough body and shoe are integral part.
 Beam - It is generally a long wooden piece, which connects the main body of
the plough to the yoke.

Handle - A wooden piece vertically attached to the body to enable the

operator to control the plough.

DISC PLOUGH:
The disc plough is designed to work in all types of soil for functions such as
soil breaking, soil raising, soil turning and soil mixing.It is used to open the new
fields and to process the stony areas.It can be used easily at rocky and rooted
areas.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 mould board
plough does not work satisfactorily.

Advantages of disc plough

♦ A disc plough can be forced to penetrate into the soil which is too hard and dry
for working with a mould board plough.

♦ It works well in sticky soil in which a mould board plough does not scour.

♦ It is more useful for deep ploughing.

♦ It can be used safely in stony and stumpy soil without much danger of breakage.

♦ A disc plough works well even after a considerable part of the disc is worn off in
abrasive soil.
♦ It works in loose soil also (such as peat) without much clogging.

Disadvantages of disc plough

♦ It is not suitable for covering surface trash and weeds as effectively as

mouldboard plough does.

♦ Comparatively, the disc plough leaves the soil in rough and more cloddy
condition than that of mouldboard plough.

♦ Disc plough is much heavier than mouldboard plough for equal capacities
because penetration of this plough is affected largely by its weight rather than
suction. There is one significant difference between mouldboard plough and disc
plough i.e. mouldboard plough is forced into the ground by the suction of the
plough, while the disc plough is forced into the ground by its own weight.

Types of Disc Plough

Disc ploughs are of two types (i) Standard disc plough and (ii) Vertical disc
plough.

Standard disc plough

It consists of steel disc of 60 to 90 cm diameter, set at a certain angle to the

direction of travel. Each disc revolves on a stub axle in a thrust bearing, carried at
the lower end of a strong stand which is bolted to the plough beam. The angle of
the disc to the vertical and to the furrow wall is adjustable. In action, the disc cuts
the soil, breaks it and pushes it sideways. There is little inversion of furrow slice as
well as little burying of weeds and trashes. The disc plough may be mounted type
or trailed type. In mounted disc plough, the side thrust is taken by the wheels of the
tractor. Disc is made of heat treated steel of 5 mm to 10 mm thickness. The amount
of concavity varies with the diameter of the disc. The approximate values being 8
cm for 60 cm diameter disc and 16 cm for 95 cm diameter. A few important terms
connected with disc plough is explained below

Fig.1. Standard disc plough

Disc - It is a circular, concave 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°.

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 a device to remove soil that tend to stick to the working surface of a
disc.
Concavity - It is the depth measured at the centre of the disc by placing its
concave side on a flat surface,

ROTARY TILLER
A rotary tiller is an implement that utilizes its set of curved tines that are
attached to a rotating shaft to dig into soil and turn it into a seedbed that’s ready for
planting.The rotary cultivator is widely considered to be the most important tool as
it provides fine degree of pulverization enabling the necessary rapid and intimate
mixing of soil besides reduction in traction demanded by the tractor driving wheels
due to the ability of the soil working blades to provide some forward thrust to the
cultivating outfit. Rotary tiller is directly mounted to the tractor with the help of
three point linkage. The power is transmitted from the tractor PTO (Power Take
Off) shaft to a bevel gear box mounted on the top of the unit, through telescopic
shaft and universal joint. From the bevel gear box the drive is further transmitted to
a power shaft, chain and sprocket transmission system to the rotor. The tynes are
fixed to the rotor and the rotor with tynes revolves in the same direction as the
tractor wheels. The number of tynes varies from 28 - 54. A levelling board is
attached to the rear side of the unit for levelling the tilled soil. A depth control
lever with depth wheel provided on either side of the unit ensures proper depth
control. The following types of blades are used with the rotor.

i. 'L' type blade - Works well in trashy conditions, they are more
effective in cutting weeds and they do not pulverize the soil much.
ii. ii. Twisted blade - Suitable for deep tillage in relatively clean ground,
but clogging and wrapping of trashes on the tynes and shafts.
 iii. iii. Straight blade - Employed on mulchers designed mainly for
secondary tillage.

Using a Rotary Tiller in a New Garden

When creating a new garden, operators should first plow the soil in the fall and let
it sit through the winter. Then, in the spring, a rotary tiller should be used to go
through the soil multiple times, or until the soil is turned about 4 to 6 inches deep
and there are no large soil clods left behind. It’s important for operators to start
slowly and not go too deep – tilling too fast will likely leave un-tilled portions of
soil behind

SUBSOILER
A subsoiler or flat lifter is a tractor-mounted farm implement used for
deep tillage, loosening and breaking up soil at depths below the levels worked by
moldboard ploughs, disc harrows, or rototillers. Most such tools will break up and
turn over surface soil to a depth of 15–20 cm (5.9–7.9 in), whereas a subsoiler will
break up and loosen soil to twice those depths. The subsoiler is a tillage tool which
will improve growth in all crops where soil compaction is a problem. In agriculture
angled wings are used to lift and shatter the hardpan that builds up due to
compaction. The design provides deep tillage, loosening soil deeper than a tiller or
plough is capable of reaching. Agricultural subsoilers, according to the Unverferth
Company, can disrupt hardpan ground down to 60 cm (24 in) depths. The subsoiler
consists of three or more heavy vertical shanks (standards) mounted on a toolbar or
frame with share bolts. They can be operated at depths of 45–75 cm (18–30 in) or
more. A ripper normally runs 35–45 cm (14–18 in) deep. Shanks are curved and
have replaceable tips. Each shank is fitted with a replaceable point or foot, similar
to a chisel plough, to break through the impervious layer, shattering the sub-soil to
a depth of 45–75 cm (18–30 in). Subsoiling is a slow operation and requires high
power input: 60 to 100 hp to pull a single subsoil point through a hard soil.
Typically, a subsoiler mounted on a compact utility tractor will reach depths of
about 30 cm (12 in) and have only one thin blade with a sharpened tip. The shanks
should be inclined to the vertical at an angle greater than 25-30 degrees, preferably
45 degrees, and it is advisable that the height be adjustable. The points of the
shanks are normally about 30 cm (12 in) wide and should be easy to replace. The
condition of the points is very important: often the subsoiler fails to give good
results due to the condition of its points. Points can be fitted with horizontal wings,
about 30 cm (12 in) wide, which considerably increases the width of soil below
ploughing depth loosened by the subsoiler. These plows are sometimes equipped
with a torpedo-shaped attachment for making subsurface drainage channels. The
subsoilers are raised and lowered hydraulically. Some models feature power-take-
off (PTO)-driven vibrating devices. The typical spacing is 76–100 cm (30–39 in)
between shanks. Shanks should be able to reach 2.5–5 cm (0.98–1.97 in) below the
deepest compacted layer. Shank spacing and height should be adjustable in the
field. Towed subsoilers should have gauge wheels to control the shank's depth.

Shanks usually are from 2–4 cm (0.79–1.57 in) thick. Thinner shanks are suited for
agricultural use. Thicker shanks hold up better in rocky conditions, but require
larger, more powerful equipment to pull them and disturb the surface more.

Subsoiler Design
Tillage tools used for subsoiling vary greatly in design and use. The individual
vertical members that contact the soil and provide disruption are referred to as
shanks. Their design varies greatly depending upon purpose, geographical location,
soil type and depth of use.

Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of tested vibrating subsoiler

REFERENCES
Brent Tremor Agricultural Subsoilers Archived 2006-11-10 at the Wayback
Machine

Cultivation And Tillage .M.R. Carter, E. McKyes, in Encyclopedia of Soils in the

Environment, 2005
"Machinery Manufacturers - Secondary Tillage". Worldwide Agricultural
Machinery and Equipment Directory. 2006-11-14. Retrieved 2007-07-12

Purdue Ag Equipment Sizes & Storage Archived 2007-04-19 at the Wayback

Machine