Farm Power & Machinery

Classification of tractor

• The tractors are classified into three classes on the basis of type of construction, type of drive and purpose.

Based on type of construction:
(a) Riding type tractors – Tractors in which a driver can sit and drive e.g., General purpose four wheel tractors.
(b) Walking type tractors – Tractors with which the operator walks along e.g., garden tractors, power tillers.

Based on type of drive :
(a) Track type tractors – In this type of tractors, instead of wheels; one track is fitted on either side. This track gets drive from the sprocket run by rear axle shaft. To steer the tractor, there is not steering gear fitted. The tractor is steered by applying brakes to one side of the track with the other track moving. These are used for bulldozing or land clearing work.
(b) Wheel type of tractors – These are most commonly used agricultural tractors. They can run fast and wheel tyres absorb a certain amount of field shocks also. These can be further divided as :
1) Two-wheel tractors – These tractors are used for small farms, hilly area and gardening purposes and are called power tillers.
2) Three-wheel tractors – These tractors were very popular 15 years back but now its place has been taken by four wheel tractors. These tractors had single or dual wheel fitted at the front end in the centre and were considered good for negotiable shorter turns.
3) Four-wheel tractors – These are most commonly used tractors in the country. These are also known as all purpose tractors. On the basis of available power, these have been classified as
(1) Small tractors – 15 to 25 hp.
(2) Medium tractors – 25 to 45 hp.
(3) Large tractors – more than 45 hp.

Based on purpose :
(a) Utility tractors – It is a specific purpose field tractor and is designed for ploughing driving any other equipment through its P.T.O. drive. It is not being manufactured at present in the country.
(b) All purpose tractor – It is designed in such a way that it can meet practically all the demands for agricultural purposes such as ploughing, harrowing, leveling, pulling, seed drill, operating threshers, and pumps through its P.T.O. These are provided with three point linkages.
(c) Orchard type tractors - These are special types of tractors used in orchards. These are made very high in height so that driver while sitting on the seat, the operations on the trees could be performed. No part of the tractor is protruded outside so that tractor can go easily in between trees safely.
(d) Garden tractors - These tractors are in the range of 1 to 10 hp and are very small in construction. These are mostly used for kitchen or vegetable gardens.
(e) Rotary Tillers - These are walking type of tractors and are used in small fields or on hills where fields are very small and are at different levels where ordinary tractors cannot work efficiently. Tined blades are fitted to the tillers to prepare the seedbeds quite effectively by pulvlerizing the soil. These are also used in rice fields for puddling and other operations.
(f) Earth Moving tractors - These tractors are heavy in weight and strongly built available both is tract and tyre type. These are used for earth moving work on dams, quarries and other constructional works.