Economic justification of industrial production of a resource-saving unit for strip tillage

Abstract

It is a well-known fact that the existing methods of continuous plow tillage are associated with high consumption of anthropogenic energy for plowing and with probability of occurrence of degradation in it. The alternative to the continuous plowing is non-inversion tillage systems related to resource-saving agriculture. At present, combined tillage implements are widely used. They are equipped with devices for applying fertilizers to plowed strips, and in spring the seeds of a certain row crop (sunflower or corn, for example) are sown there exactly in line with the upgraded seeder equipped with an agronavigator for precision farming. The task of the study is to make the preliminary economic justification of the expediency of using various implements for soil-loosening by strip conservation plowing and the need for industrial production of a combined unit for simultaneous application of fertilizers and strip plowing. The issues of implementation of modern foreign tillage technology and devices should primarily consider environmental and resource conditions for row crops cultivation in individual Russian regions. This is especially true for the strip tillage technology and the devices for its implementation. Therefore, further studies should be devoted to the economic component considering the terrain, landscape cover, climatic features, composition and type of soil, land reclamation condition. Due to the current situation, it is essential to gradually replace the imported tillage equipment by domestic developments that are not inferior in quality, reliability, performance and safety to foreign analogues. The authors mean the replacement and repair of expensive foreign produced combined units for strip plowing. To this end, it is suggested to use less expensive domestic technologically new products developed with the consideration of natural and climatic peculiarity of an individual region. The authors apply original methodology of the so-called simplified express analysis of key economic indicators. The methodology provides the opportunity to conduct accurate evaluation of the economic expediency of improving technical characteristics of the upgraded device at the beginning of the design before its production by means of a limited number of available parametric data of the machine sample under study. This eventually influences making a correct decision about the expediency of industrial production of a combined tillage device.