Plough Overview – Its Models and Functions

Ploughing is the initial step in farming and a plough is agricultural machinery used to till the soil. The use of modern plough has certainly reformed the ways of farming. This primary tillage equipment has been used by human beings in agriculture from the beginning of farming. The key objective of using it is to turn, mix and break up the upper layer of the soil and bury weeds and crop residue. Plough also helps to increase the water-retaining capacity of the soil.

A plough allows farmers to plant crops even in hard and rocky soil, which has not been sown before. Traditionally a plough made of wood and iron was used by farmers to till the land manually. Later the same became considerably efficient as human used animals to pull it into the fields. The modern plough is available in various models and is used a tractor implement pulled behind a tractor.

Although ploughing is not essentially practised in all parts of the world and it depends on the soil structure in any particular area. In some areas where soil erosion is an issue due to the heavy rains, there is no need to disturb the compacted structure of the soil. And other equipments like disc seed drills and zero-till planters are used to place the plant seeds directly into the ground. Except this, in areas where the soil needs to be tilled partially, farmers use different models as per their requirement. Some of the most used models of the plough are mentioned below -

Models of Plough

These are several types of the plough, used in modern agriculture practices for different types of soil conditions.

• Disc Plough
• Mould-Board Plough or MB plough
• Reversible Mould-Board Plough
• Reversible Manual Plough
• Jumbo Fixed Mould-Board Plough
• Mounted Mould-Board Plough
• Rotary Plough or Rotavator
• Chisel plough

Key Functions or Uses of Plough

• A key purpose of using a Plough is to break, turn and mix the soil.
• It makes it easy to add fertilizers into the soil by loosening it.
• Changing the structure of the top layer of the soil.
• Burying crop residues under the upper layer of the soil.
• Kill the weeds entirely by digging up their roots
• Makes ways for water absorption in the soil for good plant growth.
• Making soil full of nutrients by exposing it to the sun and air.

These are just a few to mention, however, there are many facts that must also be considered to completely understand the significance of plough in modern agriculture practices.