The main consumers of feed grain include industries such as livestock, pig and poultry. For the organization of proper feeding of animals and poultry, the rational use of concentrated feeds, the main component of which are grain and leguminous crops, providing about 50% of protein, is important. Currently, the share of concentrated feed in the total feed balance is more than a third. The efficiency of using feed grain without prior preparation is markedly reduced. The quality of the crushed feed in its granulometric composition exceeds the quality of the feed crushed by any hammer mill, due to the increase in the content of the easily digestible animal and bird fraction and the reduction of the dust fraction, which has a negative effect on the animal’s body. One of the main ways to prepare grain feed for feeding is grinding. During grinding, conditioning, crushing and other operations, the hard shell is destroyed, the availability of nutrients to the action of digestive juices increases, digestibility is accelerated, and more complete absorption of feed energy occurs. Grinding is the most energy-intensive and time-consuming operation, occupying more than half of the total labour costs in the preparation of animal feed. The article provides the scientific rationale for the energy efficiency of the feed grinding process.

The reserves for expanding areas for fruit plantations in the mountainous regions of Russia are limited. One of the ways to solve this problem is to engage in agricultural circulation and, in particular, for fruit plantations, sloping lands. At present, for foothill and mountain areas, scientifically based technologies for growing gardens on slopes have been developed for zones. One of the problems faced by fruit producers is the lack of technology for the care of the row-spacings of fruit plantations. Mechanized technologies of plain gardening are ineffective in the specific conditions of mountain and foothill agriculture, where soil fertility is the main limiting factor. At the same time, there is an urgent need to accelerate the creation of a humus layer in the near-stem stripes, to improve the water and food regimes of fruit plantations on sloping lands. The analysis of the soil maintenance system in the gardens showed that the most rational is the sod-humus system, which involves mowing the vegetation, leaving it on the soil surface in the form of mulch. However, commercially available technical means have a relatively low rotational speed of a rotary working body, do not provide high-quality tillage. In this regard, the proposed design of the unit for processing row-spacings of fruit plantations. As a result of the theoretical studies, rational values of the main parameters and modes of operation of the proposed unit have been established.