farming

Disc plough

Disc plough is a farm tool used for loosening and turning the soil before sowing seed or planting.  Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms, disc ploughs are drawn by tractors.   A plough may have a wooden, iron or steel frame, with a blade attached to cut and loosen the soil.  Ploughing is one of the most important soil management practices.  It is used for centuries to create a straight, grained, structural, and moist sowing layer.  Ploughing is a simple, but effective farm practice that cuts, granulates, and inverts the soil, creating furrows and ridges. 

A chisel plough is a common tool to get deep tillage with limited soil disruption. The main function of this plough is to loosen and aerate the soil while leaving crop residue at the top of the soil.  This plough can be used to reduce the effects of compaction and help to break up the soil especially if the land is being used for the first time.  The main advantage of ploughing is to loosen the soil in order to improve air circulation. The roots can penetrate deeper into the soil, thus holding the plant firmly. Ploughing also enhances the water retention capacity of the soil.

The mouldboard plough aims to cut the furrow slice, shatter the soil and invert the furrow slice to cover trash. The size of the plough bottom is the width of the furrow it is designed to cut.  The use of mould-board plough has increased in farming to impact soil characteristics, thus also needing necessary attention. The purpose of using mould-board plough in farming is to enhance the finer soil characteristics by improving the quantity of finer particles than sands.

Border disc

Border disc is an implement that is used to make field boundaries, irrigation ridges and levies for keeping erosion in check. It is also utilized for earthing-up crops planted in rows like sugar cane to make certain better root systems. Border Disc is also known as disc ridger.  It is built with a large diameter disc for the purpose of creating field boundaries for proper water irrigation drainage systems and better crop planting.

Ridger

In agriculture, a ridger is a tool, drawn by a horse or tractor for gathering and heaping up the loose soil against young plants planted in rows.  It consists essentially of two mould-boards placed side by side, flaring slightly in front and hinged to a wheel at the rear.  The ridger is an implement that is used to turn the soil in one direction after ploughing to form ridges.  Crops like potatoes, tobacco and sweet potatoes can be sown thereafter.  The Ridger is used for opening furrows for water flow. The ridger should be used when the soil is slightly moist and used only after tilling the land once or twice.

Boom Spray

A boom sprayer is the most common type of apparatus for applying herbicides in broad-scale farming.  A sprayer has many components, the most important being the nozzles, which split the herbicide into many small droplets that are projected through the air to target the crops. Boom Sprayer is most suitable for uniform and effective spray over crops. This boom sprayer comes with high-quality nozzles and an imported pump for long life. Boom sprayers are typically closer to the ground resulting in them being less affected by the wind, thereby reducing the chance of chemical drift. Boom sprayers are generally used for spraying large areas, such as fields and pastures. The Boomsprayers are used to apply liquid fertilizers, pesticides, or other liquids to crops during their vegetative cycle. Boom sprayers are used on different crops on the farm, the sprayer’s height is adjustable to ensure that crops receive the correct amount of the liquid being dispensed.

Planter

A planter is a farm implement that is usually towed behind a tractor. It is used to sow or plant seeds in rows throughout a field.  It is found on farms that grow grain crops. Its main function is to sow seeds of proper row width into the soil for creating evenly spaced crop rows and metered seed gaps. A planter is a very important component of crop production because it ensures that a good seed interacts with the good environment around it which then determines the good health of the crops.

 Functions of a planter.

• To open the furrow.
• To meter the seed.
• To deposit the seed in the furrow.
• To cover the seeds and compact the soil over them.

Harvester

Harvesting is the process of gathering ripe produce from the farms. Harvesting is the process of removal of entire plants or economic parts after maturity. The economic product may be grain, seed leaf, root or an entire plant.

The goal of good harvesting is to maximize crop yield and minimize any crop losses and quality deterioration. Harvesting can be done manually, using hands or knives and it can be done mechanically with the use of rippers, combine harvesters or other machines.

The modern combined harvester is a versatile machine designed to efficiently harvest a variety of grain crops. The name derives from its combining four separate harvesting operations which are reaping, threshing, gathering, and winnowing into a single process.  The machine consists of a rotary shaft mounted with blades to harvest the crop, an auger for conveying the cut crop, and cutters for chopping and conveying chopped fodder through an outlet into the trailer. A harvester also lets the crop in the field exposed to the sun for drying, storing the harvested crop in stacks or piles.

The main advantage of a combined harvester is to provide cleaner grains by effectively separating weeds from grain. The farm can be prepared easily in a shorter time for the next crop. Farmers can save the overall cost of harvesting from cutting to winnowing. It reduces dependency on human labour.

Three methods are used in grain harvesting:

• The first step is combining;
• The second step is harvesting, in which the grain is cut by a harvester and the windrows are collected by a pickup combine;

The third step is harvesting, in which the grain is cut, the windrows are collected, and the bulk grain is simultaneously chopped