Concept of Tillage

• The ultimate aim of tillage is to manipulate the soil from a known condition into different desired conditions by mechanical means.
• Broadly speaking tillage includes all those operations before and after seed placement, which is concerned with bringing about desired changes in soil structures, condition for seed germination and growth of the crops such as pulverization, cutting, inversion, movement of soil etc.
• The tillage of the soil consists of two types of operations, which are:

A) First part: Very elaborative and difficult operation of preparing the soil suitable for sowing.

This part comprises of series of operations like ploughing, harrowing, planking etc (to open, to break up the clods and soil to pulverized condition). This part can be accomplished by:

i) Manual labour: Digging and preparing the ground with hand tools.

ii) Use of bullock pairs or any other draft animals and driven implements.

iii) Use of mechanical power- and power-driven implements (Tractor and tractor driven implements). All these implements come under preparatory of primary tillage.

B) Second part: These are the light type of operations and are known as inter cultivations done after the crop is sown/ planted, germinated and is about 3-4 weeks old. This operation has to be least once or may be repeated depending upon the weed infestation, crops grown and physical condition of the soil. This part can also be accomplished by manual labour, bullock driven implements, power driven implements. These operations come under the secondary tillage.