Farm Machinery, Implements and Tools
Farm machinery covers power sources, tillage and sowing implements, plant protection equipment, harvesting and threshing machines, and the identification of simple hand tools.
Tillage, sowing and tools
- Primary tillage (breaks and inverts soil): mouldboard plough, disc plough, chisel plough. Secondary tillage: cultivator, harrow, leveller, rotavator.
- Seed-cum-fertilizer drill places seed and fertilizer in rows; planters handle bold seeds; transplanters are used for paddy.
- Hand tools: khurpi, spade, hoe, sickle, axe and crowbar - know each one's use by name.
- Plant protection equipment: knapsack sprayer (hydraulic), foot sprayer, duster for dust formulations, mist blower.
- Harvest and threshing: sickle, reaper, combine harvester, thresher, winnowing fan, chaff cutter.
Field capacity formula
Effective field capacity (ha/h) = (width in m × speed in km/h × field efficiency) ÷ 10.
Worked example
A 3 m rotavator works at 5 km/h with 80% field efficiency. Theoretical capacity = 3 × 5 ÷ 10 = 1.5 ha/h; effective capacity = 1.5 × 0.80 = 1.2 ha/h. Preparing 6 ha takes 6 ÷ 1.2 = 5 hours. If rain stops work after 3 hours, only 3.6 ha is finished, so the remaining 2.4 ha needs a second shift.
Traps that cost marks
- Forgetting the constant 10 in the capacity formula - it comes from unit conversion.
- Confusing a reaper (cuts only) with a combine (cuts and threshes).
- Calling a cultivator a primary tillage implement; it is secondary.
- Ignoring field efficiency, which always reduces the calculated capacity.