A PLOUGH IN ACTION NOTICE THE SOIL BEING TURN

OVER.
The plough or plow is a tool (or machine) used in
farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for
sowing seed or planting to loosen or turn the soil.
Ploughs are traditionally drawn by working animals
such as horses or cattle, but in modern times may be
drawn by tractors. A plough may be made of wood,
iron, or steel frame with an attached blade or stick
used to cut the earth. It has been a basic instrument
for most of recorded history, although written
references to the plough do not appear in English until
1100 CE at which point it is referenced frequently. The
plough represents one of the major advances in
agriculture.

The primary purpose of ploughing is to turn over the

upper layer of the soil, bringing fresh nutrients to the
surface, while burying weeds, the remains of previous
crops and allowing them to break down. As the plough
is drawn through the soil it creates long trenches of
fertile soil called furrows. In modern use, a ploughed
field is typically left to dry out, and is then harrowed
before planting. Plowing and cultivating a soil
homogenizes and modifies the upper 12 to 25 cm of
the soil to form a plow layer. In many soils, the
majority of fine plant feeder roots can be found in the
topsoil or plow layer.

TRAILED SPRAYER FOR ORCHARDS AND VINEYARDS

A sprayer is a device used to spray a liquid.

In agriculture, a sprayer is a piece of equipment that is used to

apply herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers on agricultural crops.
Sprayers range in size from man-portable units (typically backpacks
with spray guns) to trailed sprayers that are connected to a tractor, to
self-propelled units similar to tractors, with boom mounts of 60151
feet in length.

CTM Johson Tomato Harvester

While mechanical harvesting was initially
controversial because it seemingly displaced
human labor, it reduced harvesting costs by
nearly one half and eliminated an economic

constraint on the US processing tomato industry,

resulting in large increases in tomato acreage
and yield. Those increases, in turn, provided
additional employment in field work,
transportation and processing that more than
offset the displaced harvesting jobs.

In agriculture, a harrow (often called a set of harrows in

a plurale tantum sense) is an implement for breaking up and
smoothing out the surface of the soil. In this way it is distinct
in its effect from the plough, which is used for deeper tillage.
Harrowing is often carried out on fields to follow the rough

finish left by ploughing operations. The purpose of this

harrowing is generally to break up clods (lumps of soil) and to
provide a finer finish, a good tilth or soil structure that is
suitable for seedbed use. Coarser harrowing may also be used
to remove weeds and to cover seed after sowing. Harrows
differ from cultivators in that they disturb the whole surface
of the soil, such as to prepare a seedbed, instead of
disturbing only narrow trails that skirt crop rows (to kill
weeds).

A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to

deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the
purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or
construction. Most commonly, the term is used to describe a farm
vehicle that provides the power and traction to mechanize
agricultural tasks, especially (and originally) tillage, but nowadays

a great variety of tasks. Agricultural implements may be towed

behind or mounted on the tractor, and the tractor may also
provide a source of power if the implement is mechanised.

The word tractor was taken from Latin, being the agent noun
of trahere "to pull".[1][2] The first recorded use of the word
meaning "an engine or vehicle for pulling wagons or ploughs"
occurred in 1901, displacing the earlier term "traction engine"
(1859)

A seed drill is a sowing device that precisely positions

seeds in the soil and then covers them. Before the
introduction of the seed drill, the common practice was to
plant seeds by hand. Besides being wasteful, planting was
very imprecise and led to a poor distribution of seeds, leading
to low productivity. Jethro Tull is widely thought of as having
invented the seed drill, though earlier the Sumerians used a
single-tube seed drill, and the Chinese had also used a multi-

tube seed drill.[1] The use of a seed drill can improve the
ratio of crop yield (seeds harvested per seed planted) by as
much as nine times.

Drip irrigation, also known as trickle

irrigation or micro irrigation or localized
irrigation, is an irrigation method that saves
water and fertilizer by allowing water to drip
slowly to the roots of plants, either onto the soil
surface or directly onto the root zone, through a
network of valves, pipes, tubing, and emitters.

It is done through narrow tubes that deliver

water directly to the base of the plant.

Wind winnowing is an agricultural method developed by ancient

cultures for separating grain from chaff. It is also used to remove
weevils or other pests from stored grain. Threshing, the loosening of
grain or seeds from the husks and straw, is the step in the chaffremoval process that comes before winnowing.

In its simplest form it involves throwing the mixture into the air so
that the wind blows away the lighter chaff, while the heavier grains fall
back down for recovery. Techniques included using a winnowing fan (a
shaped basket shaken to raise the chaff) or using a tool (a winnowing
fork or shovel) on a pile of harvested grain.

Winnowing can also describe the natural removal of fine

material from a coarser sediment by wind or flowing water,
analogous to the agricultural separation of wheat from chaff.

A reaper is a farming tool or person that reaps (cuts and

gathers) crops at harvest, when they are ripe.
A mechanical reaper or reaping machine is a mechanical,
semi-automated device that harvests crops. Mechanical
reapers are an important part of mechanized agriculture and
a main feature of agricultural productivity.
After the first reapers were developed and patented,
other slightly different reapers were distributed by several

manufacturers throughout the world. The Champion

(Combined) Reapers and Mowers, produced by the Champion
Interest group (Champion Machine Company, later Warder,
Bushnell & Glessner, absorbed in IHC 1902) in Springfield,
Ohio in the second half of the 19th century, were highly
successful in the 1880s in the United States.[9] Springfield is
still known as "The Champion City".

A cultivator is any of several types of farm implement

used for secondary tillage. One sense of the name refers to
frames with teeth (also called shanks) that pierce the soil as
they are dragged through it linearly. Another sense refers to
machines that use rotary motion of disks or teeth to
accomplish a similar result. The rotary tiller is a principal
example.

Cultivators stir and pulverize the soil, either before

planting (to aerate the soil and prepare a smooth, loose

seedbed) or after the crop has begun growing (to kill weeds
controlled disturbance of the topsoil close to the crop plants
kills the surrounding weeds by uprooting them, burying their
leaves to disrupt their photosynthesis, or a combination of
both). Unlike a harrow, which disturbs the entire surface of
the soil, cultivators are designed to disturb the soil in careful
patterns, sparing the crop plants but disrupting the weeds.