Design Approaches of One-Pass Strip-Till Machines

Abstract

All over the world and in our country, the increasing awareness on the conservation of soil and water resources, together with the demands of reducing production costs, made it necessary for researchers to turn to alternative production ways in agriculture. As a result of these searches, it has been revealed that conservation tillage methods should become widespread as an alternative to traditional tillage method, where field traffic and fuel consumption are high, and environmental effects such as carbon emissions, soil degradation and air pollution. Despite years of research and government support, no-tillage, which is one of the sustainable agricultural practices and applied on an area of approximately 200 million hectares in the world, has unfortunately not been sufficiently adopted in Türkiye. Strip-tillage, which creates a soil environment that enhances seed germination, is a new alternative to no-tillage in areas where poorly drained soils are dominant. In this context, the strip tillage and sowing method is a combination of traditional and no-tillage methods and provides both environmental and economic benefits by saving time, labour and fuel as an alternative to the traditional method. Where soil moisture conditions are suitable, strip-tillage creates narrow-width tilled strips, traditionally in the fall, to increase early spring soil evaporation and soil temperature in the top 5 cm of the soil. When the previous studies on sowing with strip tillage are examined, it is seen that it is frequently applied in countries where agriculture is developed in the world, but there is not enough research and application area in Türkiye. In countries where agriculture is developed, it is seen that the strip tillage and sowing method is applied as a combination of two separate machines in a one-pass (tillage and sowing). In the studies carried out in Türkiye (strip tillage and sowing), it is applied separately in two stages. Both sowing application and strip-tillage can be performed in one-pass. The basic requirements for strip-tillage to be effective are accuracy in matching tillage equipment on the tool bar with the planter and placement of seeds in the tilled zones. In this study, an in-row of pneumatic spacing drill, mounted on a single chassis that can reduce the field traffic to a one-pass, is designed and simulated.