Assessment of the Performance Efficiency of Eight-Purpose Compound Equipment in One

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted to assess the performance of a locally developed and assembled eight-purpose compound equipment and determine its effect on some physical soil properties in a silty clay loam soil in one of the fields of the College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences / University of Baghdad / Jadriyah for the growing season 2022-2023. The experiment used two tractors, the (MF-650) MASSEY FERGUSON and the (MF-5640) MASSEY FERGUSON. The study included two factors: the first factor had three seed rates (3, 4, and 5 kg/donum), and the second factor had three tillage depths (15, 20, and 25 cm). Some performance indicators of the machinery unit were studied, including pulling force, fuel consumption, slippage percentage, and bulk density of the soil. The experiment was conducted using a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with split-plot arrangement and three replications. Seed rates allocated to the main plot, while the tillage depth treatments allocated to the sub-plot. The least significant difference (LSD) at a significance level of 0.05 was used to compare the means of the variables. The results showed significant differences in the performance indicators of the machinery unit due to the tillage depth and seed rate. The depth of 15 cm showed the lowest pulling force, which was 5 kilo Newtons, the lowest slippage percentage of 4.26%, and the lowest fuel consumption of 42.58 L ha-1. The results also confirmed the absence of significant differences in the performance indicators of the machinery unit due to the seed rate and the absence of significant differences in the performance indicators due to the interaction between tillage depth and seed rate.