Land preparation and its importance in
agriculture
In the crop cultivation whether its field crops,
horticulture crops or else land preparation is very important operation. In terms
of agriculture land preparation operations starts from first ploughing.
Land preparations are done by the some implements such as
plough. Harrow, cultivator, etc. in plough there are several plough are being
used and there purposes are different.
The land preparation or soil preparation is done for making
suitable seed bed for the crop sowing. When we use a fallow land or a
cultivated land after a crop the field (agriculture land) is very hard and
sowing directly any seed is not suitable as seeds will not do deep inside the
soil and they will be eaten be birds or other biological organisms. Seed must
be sown under the soil. For the different crops the standard depth of the seed
sowing are different and are specified for example specified depth of wheat seed
sowing is 5 to 6 cm below the soil surface.
As land is hard so to make them convenient for seed/plant
sowing the soil surface needs to break. For that plough by tractor or by bull
are being done. As a result of this first ploughing big and large clods are
formed, these clods are also not suitable for the seed sowing or planting. So this
needs to make more crush more. And further the soil needs to make finer and for
that cultivator is used commonly.
Tillage: Tillage includes all operations on land which
starts after harvesting of previous crop till harvesting of next crop.
Tillage can be understood as two
parts. First after harvesting of previous crop till sowing of next crop. And second
after sowing of the current crop.
Tillage is of two
types:
1. Primary tillage: it also
known as ploughing. First ploughing is opening up of soil. The ploughing is of
several types but two are important i.e. deep ploughing and sub soiling.
Deep ploughing: it means
if soil is being ploughed up to the depth of 25 to 30 cm then its called deep
ploughing. By doing this most of the weeds and several pests are exposed to
outer atmosphere and gets destroyed. The water retention capacity and mixing of
the organic matter also takes place.
Sub soiling: Sub soiling
operations are done to break the hard pans under the soil. Hard pans develop
due to many reasons it may be deposition of salts or minerals and also due to
tillage operations done at the same depth year on year. If we plough the soil
every year on the same depth by the tractor then only few centimeters of the
soils is gets open up and just below that due to weight pressure of machines
(Tractor) a hard layers forms. This is called hard pan. Due to hard pan
formation the movement of water and air gets restricted and plants/ crop roots
are hard to penetrate deep into the soils. Large number of crops has deep root
systems up to 2 – 3 meters inside the soil. If root growth gets restricted then
crop growth also gets affected badly as a result crop yield will be less as compared
to the potential of the crop.
Sub soiling is operation to break the hard pan and for sub
soiling the plough which is used is called sub soiler and its penetration is up
to 3 feet into the soil. For this operation the heavy powered tractor is required
i.e. it must be more than 50 hp.
2. Secondary tillage: All the operations after first
ploughing till sowing of the crop is known as secondary tillage. Secondary tillage
includes the seed/crop sowing operations.
In modern concept first
ploughing is called as primary tillage and all the agriculture operations done
after the first ploughing till harvesting are called secondary tillage, this
includes sowing, fertilization, irrigation, weeding, harvesting etc.
Land preparation provides better seed bed for the seed or
planting material to plant, irrigation, fertilizer application, pesticide
application etc. to raise crop.
The ploughing not only make soil loose and fragile but it
also helps to destroy seeds or plant material of the weeds. By ploughing the
eggs and several pests gets exposed to the sun and to their predators so their population
is comes down. The plant nutrients, organic matter also mixed well in the soil.
