Draft Force Inputs for Primary and Secondary Tillage Implements in a Clay Loam Soil

Tillage is the base operation in agriculture and its energy represents a considerable portion of the energy utilized in crop production. To measure the implement force requirements, are used dynamometers that are pull or three-point hitch types. In this research, an 82 kW research tractor equipped with an instrumentation system was used to determine the draft force inputs for four common tillage Implements applied to a clay loam soil in west Azarbaijan, Iran. Implements included moldboard plow plus chisel plow as primary and disk harrow plus field cultivator as secondary implements. Operating depth for the primary and secondary implements was about 250 and 100 mm, respectively. Draft measurements were compared to those predicted by ASABE Standard D497.5 (ASABE Standards, 2006) and were found to vary. It was declared that draft force of moldboard plow and field cultivator was about 2.14 and 1.8 times as much as the chisel plow and disk harrow, respectively. The large difference in implement draft indicates that substantial energy savings can be readily obtained by selecting energy-efficient tillage implements.