Performance evaluation of a spring tine cultivator in a sandy loam soil

Abstract

Selection and matching of appropriate tillage implements for a given farming operation are dependent on the data available on draft parameters for the particular tillage implement. Spring tine cultivator is one of the primary tillage implements commonly used by farmers in the study location. Performance information of spring tine cultivator is vital to enable the cost of tillage operation to be reduced. Field experiments were performed using spring tine cultivator and tractor at three tillage depths (10, 20 and 30 cm) and five tractor speeds (3.6, 5.4, 7.2, 9.0 and 10.8 km/hr) to determine the implement travel speed. The effects of tillage depth and implement travel speed on draft force, unit draft, vertical specific draft, horizontal specific draft and coefficient of pull were accessed. The results showed that increasing the tillage depth or implement travel speed increased the draft force, unit draft and vertical specific draft. The relationship between them is also linear. Increasing the tillage depth equally increase the horizontal specific draft and the coefficient of pull but increasing the implement speed reduce the horizontal specific draft and the coefficient of pull. Approximately 27.5 % of the draft force was focused towards cutting the soil and 72.5 % was spent in pulverization of the soil particles. The values of the vertical specific draft were much more than those of the horizontal specific draft for all the tillage depths and the implement travel speeds. The tillage depth had more influence on the draft, unit draft, specific draft and the coefficient of pull than the implement travel speed.