Farm Machinery, Tools and Implements: Matching Tool to Operation
What this domain tests
Identification of tools, matching implements to operations, primary versus secondary tillage, sprayer use, and simple calculations of field capacity or power requirement.
Tool and implement groups
- Primary tillage opens the soil: mouldboard plough, disc plough, and the traditional desi plough (langal).
- Secondary tillage refines the seedbed: disc harrow, cultivator, leveller, and the ladder or plank (mair) used to crush clods.
- Interculture and hand tools: hoe (nirani), spade (kodal), sickle (kachi), dao, dibbler, khurpi.
- Sowing and threshing: seed drill, transplanting implements, pedal and power threshers, winnowing fan and tray.
- Sprayers: knapsack (manual), rocker and power sprayers; nozzles govern droplet size, calibration governs dose.
- Tractor: 20–45 hp for smallholdings, PTO speed 540 rpm; power take-off drives threshers and pumps.
Worked example
A 2 m wide implement works at 4 km/h with 75% field efficiency. Effective capacity = width × speed × efficiency = 2 m × 4,000 m/h × 0.75 = 6,000 m²/h = 0.6 ha/h. Reasoning: convert km/h to m/h first and keep efficiency as a decimal.
Traps that cost marks
Listing a harrow as primary tillage; confusing draft with horsepower; forgetting unit conversion; assuming the manufacturer's width is the effective width - overlapping passes reduce it.