Abstract:
The article presents the draft requirements of tractor drawn single bottom mould board plough by using teflon and chromium coating on the soil engaged components such as the mould board, share and landside in comparison with uncoated plough. Trials were conducted in Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, at three levels of moisture content
viz., 20-25(M
1), 25-30 (M
2) and 30-35 (M
3) per cent moisture content on a clay loam soil. The selected levels of coating materials for mould board plough bottom were uncoated i.e bare (C
1), chromium (C
2) and teflon (C
3). The forward speeds of operation selected for investigation were 2 (F
1), 3 (F
2) and 4 kmh
-1(F
3). The teflon coating (C
3) material had a profound effect in decreasing the draft compared to chromium coated (C
2) and uncoated plough bottom (C
1) for all selected levels of forward speed and moisture content. The linear increase in draft was observed with increase in moisture content from 20-25 per cent (M
1) to 30-35 per cent (M
3) for the selected levels of coating material and forward speed. The minimum draft was registered as 0.235 kN for the mould board coated with teflon (C
3) at the forward speed of 2 kmh
-1 (F
1) and in the moisture range of 20-25 (M
1) per cent. The maximum draft of 0.336 kN was registered for the uncoated plough bottom (C
1) operating at the speed of 4 kmh
-1(F
3) in the moisture range of 30-35 per cent (M
3).