Simple it may seem, ploughing is most crucial of all farming practices. Stirring up the soil enables farmers to cultivate plants in all kinds of earlier inhospitable environments. Ploughs are the most basic but most important of agricultural machinery or tools. The tool enables humans to cultivate crops and create farming atmosphere. The history of the plough is a also surprisingly fascinating.
Agriculture being the oldest industry in the world, farmers started ploughing fields before could even write, and prior to that just roaming in vast areas in search of food, water and shelter. Farming allowed them to root in one place like a community, and they began to domesticate plants and animals. They started to spend time in tilling the soil, Instead of chasing animals or picking wild fruit from trees. And then practices like planting grain and watering them enabled humans to cultivate more fruit and grains. Each generation started gaining more knowledge about preparing the soil to grow healthy crops.
Before the creation of the basic country plough, farmers used branches and sticks to create furrows on the soil surface to sow seeds. Late to become more efficient, they eventually invented hand-held hoes. After generations, when human started domesticating wild animals, animal-drawn ploughs were used to make the difficult work easier.
What is the use of a plough?
1. Ploughs help to prepare the soil for seeding or planting crops:
2. Creates open furrows by dragging through the soil.
3. Lands can be tilled faster and more food can be produced.
4. To grow healthy crops in less fertile areas, the soil needs to be churned up to bring the nutrients to the surface soil.
5. Turning up the soil also deposits plant residue below where it breaks down and works as a natural compost.
6. Ploughing aerates the earth, enabling it to hold more moisture.
Types of Plough
Ploughing has come quite a long way since the early days when sticks and oxen were used. Nowaday farmers have expensive agriculture machines to churn up the soil pulled behind tractors yet the purpose remains much the same. Below we have mentioned few common types of ploughs.
Disc Plough
Directly mounted to the tractor, a disc plough consists 2-3-4 and 5 bottoms, that break, turn and ix the soil even in hard and dry trashy land conditions and where scouring is a major problem.
Mould-board Plough
The mould-board plough consists wear-resistant steel blade with bar points for toughest ploughing jobs. Its under-frame and unit-to-unit clearance are suitable to cope with trashy conditions.
Reversible Mould Board Plough
It special wear-resistant steel bottoms with points for excellent penetration performance. Easy drawbar adjustment, strong turnover axle, hydraulic turnover mechanism, under-frame clearance makes Reversible Mould Board Plough adequate to cope with trashy conditions.
