Evaluation of Energy Requirements and Soil Disturbance in Conservation Tillage Tools

Increasing of energy consumption in the developing agriculture reveals necessity of optimizing the operation tools used in this sector. The objective of the present research is studying the interaction of narrow tillage tines and soil to reach the optimum geometric shape in order to raise the yield of energy consumption. This research was performed in a soil bin with factorial experiments in a completely randomized format with three iterations. Testing treatments were tillage depth (10, 20 and 25 cm), rake angle (60, 70 and 90°) and blade width (3 and 6 cm) and studied parameters were draft force, soil disturbance area and specific draft force. The results showed that depth and rake angle have significant influences on the amount of draft resistant force, soil disturbance area and specific draft force (p<0.01). Also blade width influenced draft resistant force and soil disturbance area significantly, but it did not have significant impact on the amount of specific draft force ).The comparison of averages revealed that the combination of 25 cm depth with 90° rake angle provides superlative soil disturbance. However, it needs maximum amount of draft force. Also, consequences showed that the best combination, in order to decrease the specific draft force, is the use of wider blades (6 cm) with smaller rake angle (60°) and less working depth (10 cm).