Comparison of three primary tillage plows commonly used in Iraq

Abstract

Tillage operations are consider one of the largest agricultural operations on most Iraqi farms, and soil tillage requires greater power and energy than any other operation. In this review article, will reviewed three types of most common plows used by Iraqi farmers used in primary (conventional) tillage of the soil are moldboard, chisel and disc plows, which differ in their design, shape, method of work and dealing with the soil, for aim and reviewed the various studies to help Iraqi farmers choose the most appropriate plow to plough (till) their fields and achieve the best plowing productivity while reducing fuel consumption, process implementation time, cost of operation tillage, saving the power requirement, maintain healthy soil and increasing productivity yields. Tilling the soil well for prepare the seed bed will produce good plants, which gave a good and healthy yields, and this is the aim of all farmers not only in Iraq, but all over the world. The farmers in southern and middle Iraq, usually used the moldboard plow (which is most popular tillage plow in Iraq) more than chisel and disk plows, while in the northern regions of Iraq, they use the chisel plow in addition to the disc plow. Conclude that choosing the best type of plows depends on the specific requirements that the field needs, therefore, there are some factors that help the farmers to make the right choice which are: the size of the farm or the field; the type of soil, the crop to be grown, residue and depth of the tillage requirement.

Keywords

• iraqi soil
• plowing
• moldboard
• chisel
• disc