Farm Machinery, Implements and Tools
What this domain tests
Identification and selection of tools, implements and machines, primary versus secondary tillage equipment, sowing and plant-protection machines, tractor–implement matching, calibration and maintenance.
Core rules
- Primary tillage: mouldboard plough (inverts soil, buries residue, high draft), disc plough (works in hard, dry or sticky soils) and chisel plough (breaks hardpan without inverting). Secondary tillage: disc harrow, cultivator, rotavator, leveller and bund former.
- Sowing: the seed drill and planter place seed at uniform depth and row spacing; a seed-cum-fertilizer drill places fertilizer below and to the side of the seed.
- Plant protection: knapsack sprayer (16–18 L), compression sprayer, boom sprayer, duster and drone spraying. Nozzle type fixes droplet size - flat fan for herbicides, hollow cone for insecticides and fungicides.
- Tractor matching: implement width and draft must suit tractor power. Theoretical field capacity (ha/h) = (width in m × speed in km/h) / 10; actual capacity is 70–85% of this.
- Calibration: spray volume per hectare = (nozzle discharge in L/min × 10,000) / (swath in m × speed in m/min).
- Maintenance: grease points, sharpened blades, correct tyre pressure, clean filters, rated PTO speed and safe hitching.
Worked example
One nozzle of a knapsack sprayer discharges 0.6 L/min, the swath is 0.75 m and the operator walks at 1 m/s (60 m/min). Reasoning: spray volume = (0.6 × 10,000) / (0.75 × 60) = 6,000 / 45 ≈ 133 L/ha. If the recommendation is 500 L/ha, this setting under-doses badly; fit a larger nozzle or slow the walk, and check the delivered volume on a measured area before spraying the whole field.
Traps
Choosing a rotavator to break a deep hardpan; using one nozzle type for herbicide and insecticide; treating theoretical field capacity as the achievable figure; and adjusting a sprayer by guesswork instead of measuring discharge.