What is a Plough – Meaning – Types of Plows & Use of Plough

Tractor Agriculture is going to demonstrate topic called What is a Plough inside out today. When i was 14 years old, I went with my father to the fields and saw many types of new tools.  We will today discuss about an important Agricultural Equipment which cannot be ignored.

This is going to be a single resource article having all the knowledge needed to understand this tool.

A Plough or Plow is an Agricultural Implement which is used to cut the soil and make it suitable for the process called seed sowing.

Before sowing the seeds into the field, it is paramount to make the field suitable. To accomplish this, different types of ploughs are used nowadays.

What is the Advantage of using Plough? The major reasons are listed below:

• The first reason is to accomplish deeper seed level for efficient penetration.
• It adds more humus and fertility to the soil by covering vegetation and minerals.
• It destroys the unwanted weeds.
• It gives the soil the condition to breathe easily and air can easily pass through the soil.
• The seeds are able to establish good contact with the soil.
• The insects and their eggs are destroyed.
• The surface reaches to such a condition in which the erosion by wind is a rare possibility.

Now we have learnt the major advantage of a plough, let us discover the right time to Plough.

This is very important research task and the yield of crop generally depends upon quality of seed bed and time of start.

There are many factors which should be taken care of during this process. These points are:

During rainy season, if early ploughing is done, it helps in retaining the crop and minimizes unwanted weeds. These weeds later become manure which ultimately results in overall benefit.

Types of Ploughs

There are different types of Ploughs available to match various types of soil structures. These different types are listed below:

• Mould Board Plough
• Disc Type Plough
• Rotary Plough
• Chisel or sub surface Plough
• Sub Soiler Plough

MouldBoard Plough

In the older times, wooden plough was used mostly but in the recent times steel versions are used everywhere.

The MouldBoard version cut the furrow slices into pulverised form. The main use of this tool is to cover vegetables and green manure crops. It is also used for inverting grass into the soil after rainfall.

There are different types of MouldBoard Ploughs like:

• Trailed
• Mounted
• Semi Mounted

These versions are further sub divided into:

• One-Way Version
• Two Way Version

Trailed Mould Boards

It is also called as pull type mouldboard plough and is supported on 2 or 3 wheels.

• Single Bottom Plough

This type of setting is maintained on 2 wheels and a land wheel. A screw jack and hydraulic cylinder are also involved in integration.

• Gang Mould Board

This type has between 2 to 5 bottoms. To lift this plough, a power lift or screw jack or hydraulic cylinders are used which can easily raise or lower the plough.

Mounted Ploughs

They are also called as direct mounted or tractor mounted ploughs. They are attached to a Tractor and Tractor lift is used to raise or lower them. When this implement is lifted, the whole load is managed by the Tractor itself.

One Way Plough

These types of implements direct the soil in a particular direction when seen from behind.

• Two Way Plough

This type has 2 type of bottoms i.e. left and right. These kinds of Ploughs are very popular nowadays and are the preferred choice for irregular land.
Disc Plough
The name resembles the structure of this implement. It is in the form of a disc i.e. DISK (concave shape). They were used in order to reduce the friction. This Plough cannot be used at greater speeds as cutting process requires slow speed. Compared to Mould Board, Disk Plough has lesser maintenance cost.

Disc Plow can easily be used in conditions where mouldboard plow cannot be used. These conditions are listed below:

The soil that is sticky in nature.

• The land that is dry and hard.
• Disc Plough can easily move over the stones.
• Disk Plow is very effective after crop harvesting and ground being hard.
• They are mostly used for deep ploughing.
• The life span of a Disk Plough is greater in abrasive soil as compared to Mould Board Plow.

Types of Disc Ploughs

The Disc Plows can generally divided into 2 categories. They are:

1. Bullock Based
2. Tractor Based

There are different parts that constitute a Disk Plow. They are:

• Hitch Bolt
• Disk Scraper
• Disk Hub
• Rear Furrow Wheel
• Beam or Frame
• Lift Crank

Bullock Drawn Plough is divided into 2 types. These are i) Sulky and ii) Gang Type.

The Tractor based Disc Plow is divided into 3 types namely:

i)             Direct Mounted

ii)            Semi Mounted

iii)           Trailing Type.

 Rotary Hoe or Rotary Plough

This type of plough is very popular nowadays due to their specific use in seed bed preparation. The cutting of soil is done by steel tines or blades. The Rotary Hoes are of 3 types.

1. Pull Type

In this type of setting, Tractor pulls the rotary hoe and auxiliary engine is attached to supply power. The blades are made to run using this integration.

Tractor Mounted

These are mounted on tractors and PTO shaft manages the running process.

3. Self Propelled

These type of hoes are usually driven by own engine and are effective in small farms or gardens where the operator walks along side.

Tractor Mounted and Self Propelled plough varieties are mostly used.

In Tractor Mounted Implements, power from tractor rear PTO shaft is transmitted by a propeller shaft to the gearbox through a dog clutch which is handled by a hand lever.

Power from gearbox is transmitted to sprocket for moving the rotor shaft. The rotors have sharp edged blades fitted on them.

Types of Tilth

The type of tilth can be controlled by the machine. These factors affect the type of tilth:

i)             The type of soil.

ii)           The speed of Tractor and machine.

iii)          The Moisture Content of soil.

Depth of Cut

The machine can easily cut to a depth of 9” but it is advisable to make a cut of 5” on starting so that machine overloading can be avoided.

Chisel or Sub Surface Plough

The chisel plow is used at shallow depths and areas where we do not want to turn the soil. Their primary use is to loosen hard dry soil. This implement is mostly used for reclamation of land which has not been used for Agriculture.

 SubSoilers

They are similar to Chisel Ploughs but are rigid and heavy duty in nature. SubSoiler can shear land up to depth of 36”. This process requires a lot of machine power, so Tractors with power range between 100hp-200hp are used for these types of Ploughs.

Heavy Sub Soiler implements are mostly used for the land reclamation. This implement is used for water conversation on hill slopes and hill side fields and also to improve wet areas drainage.