Farm Power & Machinery

Classification of Tillage

Tillage is divided into two classes:

Primary tillage
Secondary tillage

Primary tillage

• It constitutes the initial major soil working operation.
  
• It is normally designed to reduce soil strength, cover plant materials and rearrange aggregates.
  
• The operations performed to open up any cultivable land with a view to prepare a seed bed for growing crops is known as primary tillage.
  
• Implements may be tractor drawn or animal drawn implements.
  
• Animal drawn implements mostly include indigenous plough and mould-board plough.
  
• Tractor drawn implements include mould-board plough, disc plough, subsoil plough, chisel plough and other similar implements.
Secondary tillage

• Tillage operations following primary tillage which are performed to create proper soil tilth for seeding and planting are secondary tillage.
• These are lighter and finer operations, performed on the soil after primary tillage operations.
  
• Secondary tillage consists of conditioning the soil to meet the different tillage objectives of the farm.
  
• The implements used for secondary tillage operations are called secondary tillage implements.
  
• They include different types of harrow, cultivators, levellers, clod crushers and similar implements.
  
• These operations are generally done on the surface soil of the farm.
  
• Secondary tillage operations do not cause much soil inversion and shifting of soil from one place to other.
  
• These operations consume less power per unit area compared to primary tillage operations.
• To break the big clods and to make the field surface uniform and levelled.
• To cut crop residues and mix them with top soil of the field.
• Secondary tillage implements may be tractor drawn or bullock drawn implements. Bullock drawn implements include harrows, cultivators, hoes etc.