Combined Tillage Tools– A Review

Abstract

The costliness of energy, forces the farmers to choose another cost efficient tillage methods. The cost as well as time of operation plays a critical role in choosing another tools for tillage. Combined tillage is the way in which two or more different tillage implements operates at the same time in order to manipulate the soil and reduce the number and time of field operations. It was envisaged that such an implement would affect considerable saving of time, fuel and energy. This would also reduce the cost of operation. There was an efficient and potential reduction in the soil compaction, labour and fuel cost, saving in time and reduction of multiple tillage operation in single pass. The conventional tillage practices are becoming increasingly expensive in terms of time, fuel and equipment costs and are also causing more soil damage and compaction due to higher number of passes required for the conventional implements during seedbed preparation. As the land sizes in India are small, the scope for increasing the speed or width of existing implements is less feasible. Hence, reducing the number of passes by combining two or more field operations with the use of combination tillage implements may provide better solution. In a single run the combined tillage tool performs primary as well as secondary tillage operations.

Deep soil ploughing for afforestation: a review of potential impacts on soil and vegetation

“…The search was limited to references published in the past 40 years, from 1980 to 2020. General issues, which are not based directly on the effects of deep ploughing on forest plantations, were cited from previous literature reviews (Hamza and Anderson 2005, Mahajan and Balachandran 2012, Blouin et al 2013, Prem et al 2016, Feng et al 2020.…”

“…Ploughing is one of the oldest technologies through which soil is inverted, loosened, compacted, mixed, and crushed (Prem et al 2016). During deep ploughing, the subsoil horizons enter the soil surface, and the upper soil horizon (topsoil) is buried in deeper soil layers, and the process ends with deep-soil mixing throughout the profile (Schneider et al 2017).…”

Strip-Till One-Pass Technology in Central and Eastern Europe: A MZURI Pro-Til Hybrid Machine Case Study

“…Tillage is the key factor affecting the soil in agroecosystems [1,2]. Depending on the tool design, especially the working parts of the tools, soil is inverted, loosened, compacted, mixed, and crushed [3,4]. The entire field surface or only its part, narrow strips, will be tilled.…”

Specific energy requirements and soil pulverization of a combined tillage implement

“…Various combinations of machinery or implements with rotary-powered tillage have been developed and have been found to be more energy efficient than similar single, passive tillage tools when they were tested under actual field conditions (Shinners et al., 1993). A combined tillage tool simultaneously uses two or more types of tillage implement to accomplish primary and secondary tillage in a one-pass operation for seedbed preparation (Prem et al., 2016). The potential benefits of combining a passive implement as a primary implement and an active implement as a secondary tillage implement are:Reduction in the number of tillage operations which can reduce sub-soil compaction (Manian et al., 1999), the time of field operation, and fuel and labor costs (Al-Janobi and Al-Suhaibani, 1998; Sahu and Raheman, 2006; Kailappan et al., 2001).…”