Who decides what tractors farmers need?

Abstract

Improvement of crop production technologies is based on the development of agricultural machinery in which the trac- tor power plays an important role. In crop production, agricultural crops require variable attention during their growing season and consequently, different production costs. The most expensive are row crops which in the process of development require a lot of inter-row tillage of plantings and sowings. The implementation of such tillage involves the control of weeds, plant fertilization, operations for chemical protection of plants from diseases and pests. Therefore, it becomes evident that the agricultural machinery used in the production of such crops must be adapted to its use in planting and sowing crops at different stages of plant development. Thus, both the aboveground and the parts of the plant located in the soil should not be damaged and oppressed by the working bodies of agricultural machines and the engines of energy facilities. It becomes obvious that tractor fleet of agricultural organizations should have both powerful general-purpose tractors used mainly for plowing, continuous disking, cultivation and sowing using wide coverage units, and row-crop tractors designed for inter-row tillage. There are methods for developing an optimal fleet of machinery for agricultural organizations which differ in production trends and in size of agriculturally used areas. Taking into account the possibility of using modern means of digitalization and artificial intelligence which can significantly improve the quality of technological processes and control them, it is possible to develop technologies for the production of row crops. Of all tractor models mentioned in the research, the following models have the best agrotechnological characteristics required of the general-purpose row-crop tractors: Fastrac 2170 produced by the British company JCB and LTI 162.5 tractor that is to be produced in Izhevsk, Russia.