Effect of Soil Moisture and Distance of Scraper in Field Performance of Disk Plow

Abstract

Soil tillage is a critical process in agricultural production. Furthermore, the process consumes a lot of energy and time to complete the soil tillage practices. A disk plow with triple disks was tested in one of the Agriculture and Forestry college plantations at the University of Mosul during season 2013. The research included two soil moisture contents (10.7 and 16.2%), and three distances between the inner disk face and the scraper (2, 4, and 6 cm). Besides, two forward speeds for the tractor (2.29 and 5.85 km/h) were used. The disk plow test was adopted to evaluate the energy consumed, the specific energy, the volume of soil pulverized, and the soil adhesion on the disks. The test also evaluated the ratio of soil overturn, the lateral soil transfer, and the number of soil clods bigger than 10 cm/m2. The data were analyzed with the statistic randomized complete block design (RCBD) using the split-split plots system. The results indicated significant differences with the factor level of soil moisture 10.7% with the first scraper position of 2 cm, and forward speed of 5.85 km/h, and for the traits of soil adhesion and lateral soil transfer, which were 0.11 N/m2 and 170.33 cm, respectively. On the other hand, there were no statistical significant differences in the traits of energy consumed, specific energy, volume of soil pulverized, soil overturn, and number of soil clods bigger than 10 cm/m2. The consumed energy, specific energy, and number of soil clods decreased, while the volume of pulverized soils and soil overturn ratio increased, at soil moisture 16.2% with the same levels of treatment.