![Einscharpflug - Farmer plowing in Fahrenwalde, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/04-09-12-Schaupfl%C3%BCgen-Fahrenwalde-RalfR-IMG_1232.jpg)
A plough or plow (
US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before
sowing seed or planting.
Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, iron or steel frame, with a blade attached to cut and loosen the soil. It has been fundamental to farming for most of history. The earliest ploughs had no wheels; such a plough was known to the Romans as an ''aratrum''. Celtic peoples first came to use wheeled ploughs in the Roman era.
The prime purpose of ploughing is to turn over the uppermost soil,
bringing fresh nutrients to the surface while burying weeds and crop remains to
decay
Decay may refer to:
Science and technology
* Bit decay, in computing
* Software decay, in computing
* Distance decay, in geography
* Decay time (fall time), in electronics
Biology
* Decomposition of organic matter
* Tooth decay (dental caries ...
. Trenches cut by the plough are called furrows. In modern use, a ploughed field is normally left to dry and then
harrowed before planting. Ploughing and cultivating soil evens the content of the upper layer of soil, where most plant-feeder roots grow.
Ploughs were initially powered by humans, but the use of farm animals was considerably more efficient. The earliest animals worked were oxen. Later, horses and
mules were used in many areas. With the
industrial revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
came the possibility of
steam engines to pull ploughs. These in turn were superseded by
internal-combustion
An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal combus ...
-powered tractors in the early 20th century.
Use of the traditional plough has decreased in some areas threatened by soil damage and erosion. Used instead is shallower ploughing or other less-invasive
conservation tillage
Tillage is the agricultural preparation of soil by mechanical agitation of various types, such as digging, stirring, and overturning. Examples of human-powered tilling methods using hand tools include shoveling, picking, mattock work, hoei ...
.
Etymology
In older English, as in other
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...
, the plough was traditionally known by other names, e.g.
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
(modern dialectal '),
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
, , ,
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...
(
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
), and
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
, all presumably referring to the
ard (scratch plough).
The modern word comes from the
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...
, and is therefore Germanic, but it appears relatively late (it is not attested in
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
), and is thought to be a loan from one of the north
Italic languages. The German cognate is "Pflug", the Dutch "ploeg" and the Swedish "plog". In many Slavic languages and in Romanian the word is "plug". Words with the same root appeared with related meanings: in
Raetic
Rhaetic or Raetic (), also known as Rhaetian, was a language spoken in the ancient region of Rhaetia in the eastern Alps in pre-Roman and Roman times. It is documented by around 280 texts dated from the 5th up until the 1st century BC, which wer ...
"wheeled heavy plough" (
Pliny
Pliny may refer to:
People
* Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE), ancient Roman nobleman, scientist, historian, and author of ''Naturalis Historia'' (''Pliny's Natural History'')
* Pliny the Younger (died 113), ancient Roman statesman, orator, w ...
, ''
Nat. Hist.'' 18, 172), and in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
"farm cart", "cart", and "cart box". The word must have originally referred to the wheeled heavy plough, common in Roman north-western Europe by the 5th century AD.
Many view ''plough'' as a derivative of the verb *''plehan'' ~ *''plegan'' 'to take responsibility' (cf. German ''pflegen'' 'to look after, nurse'), which would explain, for example, Old High German ''pfluog'' with its double meaning of 'plough' and 'livelihood'. Guus Kroonen (2013) proposes a ''
vṛddhi
Vṛddhi (also rendered vr̥ddhi) is a technical term in morphophonology given to the strongest grade in the vowel gradation system of Sanskrit. The term is derived from Sanskrit ''vṛddhi'', , 'growth', from .
Origins
Vṛddhi itself has its ...
''-derivative of *''plag/kkōn'' 'sod' (cf. Dutch ''plag'' 'sod', Old Norse ''plagg'' 'cloth', Middle High German 'rag, patch, stain'). Finally, Vladimir Orel (2003)
Vladimir Orel
Vladimir Emmanuilovich Orël (russian: Владимир Эммануилович Орëл; 9 February 1952 – 5 August 2007) was a Russian linguist and etymologist.
Biography
At the Moscow State University he studied theoretical linguistics ...
, ''A Handbook of Germanic Etymology'', s.v. "*plōȝuz" (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 292. tentatively attaches ''plough'' to a
PIE stem *', which supposedly gave
Old Armenian
Classical Armenian (, in Eastern Armenian pronunciation: Grabar, Western Armenian: Krapar; meaning "literary anguage; also Old Armenian or Liturgical Armenian) is the oldest attested form of the Armenian language. It was first written down at ...
"to dig" and
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
"crack", though the word may not be of Indo-European origin.
Parts
The basic parts of the modern plough are:
#beam
#
hitch (
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
: hake)
![Old plough schema](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Old_plough_schema.svg)
#vertical regulator
#
coulter (knife coulter pictured, but disk coulter common)
#chisel (foreshare)
#
share (mainshare)
#mouldboard
Other parts include the frog (or frame), runner, landside, shin, trashboard, and stilts (handles).
On modern ploughs and some older ploughs, the mould board is separate from the share and runner, so these parts can be replaced without replacing the mould board. Abrasion eventually wears out all parts of a plough that come into contact with the soil.
History
Hoeing
When agriculture was first developed, soil was turned using simple hand-held
digging stick
A digging stick, sometimes called a yam stick, is a wooden implement used primarily by subsistence-based cultures to dig out underground food such as roots and tubers, tilling the soil, or burrowing animals and anthills. It is a term used in a ...
s and
hoes.
These were used in highly fertile areas, such as the banks of the
Nile
The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest ...
, where the annual flood rejuvenates the soil, to create
drills (furrows) in which to plant seeds. Digging sticks, hoes and
mattock
A mattock is a hand tool used for digging, prying, and chopping. Similar to the pickaxe, it has a long handle and a stout head which combines either a vertical axe blade with a horizontal adze (cutter mattock), or a pick and an adze (pick mat ...
s were not invented in any one place, and hoe cultivation must have been common everywhere agriculture was practised. Hoe-farming is the traditional tillage method in tropical or sub-tropical regions, which are marked by stony soils, steep slope gradients, predominant root crops, and coarse grains grown at wide intervals. While hoe-agriculture is best suited to these regions, it is used in some fashion everywhere. Instead of hoeing, some cultures use pigs to trample the soil and grub the earth.
Ard
![Chikkagowdanakoppalu, Yelwala](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Chikkagowdanakoppalu%2C_Yelwala.jpg)
Some ancient hoes, like the Egyptian ''mr'', were pointed and strong enough to clear rocky soil and make seed drills, which is why they are called ''hand-ards''. However,
domestication
Domestication is a sustained multi-generational relationship in which humans assume a significant degree of control over the reproduction and care of another group of organisms to secure a more predictable supply of resources from that group. ...
of
oxen in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
and the
Indus valley civilization, perhaps as early as the 6th millennium BC, provided mankind with the draft power needed to develop the larger, animal-drawn true ''
ard'' (or scratch plough). The earliest surviving evidence of ploughing has been dated to 3500–3800 BCE, on a site in
Bubeneč
Bubeneč is a district in the north-west of Prague. 52% of the district is in Prague 7, but most of the built-up area is in Prague 6. Sparta Prague football club and their stadium Generali Arena is situated at the south-eastern edge of Bubeneč, ...
, Czech Republic. A ploughed field, from c.2800 BCE, was also discovered at
Kalibangan
Kalibangān is a town located at on the left or southern banks of the Ghaggar (Ghaggar-Hakra River) in Tehsil Pilibangān, between Suratgarh and Hanumangarh in Hanumangarh District, Rajasthan, India 205 km. from Bikaner. It is also identi ...
, India. A terracotta model of the early ards was found at
Banawali
Banawali (Devanagari: बनावली) is an archaeological site belonging to Indus Valley civilization period in fatehabad district, Haryana, India and is located about 120 km northeast of Kalibangan and 16 km from Fatehabad. Ban ...
, India, giving insight into the form of the tool used. The ard remained easy to replace if it became damaged and easy to replicate.
The earliest was the bow ard, which consists of a draft-pole (or beam) pierced by a thinner vertical pointed stick called the head (or body), with one end being the stilt (handle) and the other a share (cutting blade) dragged through the topsoil to cut a shallow furrow suitable for most cereal crops. The ard does not clear new land well, so hoes or mattocks had to be used to pull up grass and undergrowth, and a hand-held,
coulter-like ristle could be made to cut deeper furrows ahead of the share. Because the ard left a strip of undisturbed earth between furrows, the fields were often cross-ploughed lengthwise and breadth-wise, which tended to form squarish
Celtic fields
Celtic field is an old name for traces of early (prehistoric) agricultural field systems found in North-West Europe, i.e. Britain, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, France, Sweden, Poland and the Baltic states. The fields themselves ...
.
[Lynn White Jr., ''Medieval Technology and Social Change'' (Oxford: University Press, 1962)] The ard is best suited to loamy or sandy soils that are naturally fertilised by annual flooding, as in the
Nile Delta and
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...
, and to a lesser extent any other cereal-growing region with light or thin soil. By the late
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...
, ards in Europe were commonly fitted with coulters.
Mould-board ploughing
![Mouldboard plough](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Mouldboard_plough.JPG)
To grow crops regularly in less-fertile areas, it was once believed that the soil must be turned to bring nutrients to the surface. A major advance for this type of farming was the turn plough, also known as the mould-board plough (UK), moldboard plow (US), or frame-plough. A coulter (or skeith) could be added to cut vertically into the ground just ahead of the share (in front of the frog), a wedge-shaped cutting edge at the bottom front of the mould board with the landside of the frame supporting the under-share (below-ground component). The mould-board plough introduced in the 18th century was a major advance in technology.
The upper parts of the frame carry (from the front) the coupling for the motive power (horses), the coulter and the landside frame. Depending on the size of the implement, and the number of furrows it is designed to plough at one time, a fore-carriage with a wheel or wheels (known as a furrow wheel and support wheel) may be added to support the frame (wheeled plough). In the case of a single-furrow plough there is one wheel at the front and handles at the rear for the ploughman to steer and maneuver it.
![Furrows, ploughed field](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Furrows%2C_ploughed_field.jpg)
When dragged through a field, the coulter cuts down into the soil and the share cuts horizontally from the previous furrow to the vertical cut. This releases a rectangular strip of sod to be lifted by the share and carried by the mould board up and over, so that the strip of sod (slice of the topsoil) that is being cut lifts and rolls over as the plough moves forward, dropping back upside down into the furrow and onto the turned soil from the previous run down the field. Each gap in the ground where the soil has been lifted and moved across (usually to the right) is called a furrow. The sod lifted from it rests at an angle of about 45 degrees in the adjacent furrow, up the back of the sod from the previous run.
![Child and ox ploughing, Laos (1)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Child_and_ox_ploughing%2C_Laos_%281%29.jpg)
A series of ploughings run down a field leaves a row of sods partly in the furrows and partly on the ground lifted earlier. Visually, across the rows, there is the land on the left, a furrow (half the width of the removed strip of soil) and the removed strip almost upside-down lying on about half of the previous strip of inverted soil, and so on across the field. Each layer of soil and the gutter it came from forms a classic furrow. The mould-board plough greatly reduced the time needed to prepare a field and so allowed a farmer to work a larger area of land. In addition, the resulting pattern of low (under the mould board) and high (beside it) ridges in the soil forms water channels, allowing the soil to drain. In areas where snow build-up causes difficulties, this lets farmers plant the soil earlier, as the snow run-off drains away more quickly.
Parts
There are five major parts of a mouldboard plough:
#Mouldboard
#Share
#Landside (short or long)
#Frog (sometimes called a standard)
#Tailpiece
The share, landside and mould board are bolted to the frog, which is an irregular piece of cast iron at the base of the plough body, to which the soil-wearing parts are bolted.
The share is the edge that makes the horizontal cut to separate the furrow slice from the soil below. Conventional shares are shaped to penetrate soil efficiently: the tip is pointed downward to pull the share into the ground to a regular depth. The clearance, usually referred to as suction or down suction, varies with different makes and types of plough. Share configuration is related to soil type, particularly in the down suction or concavity of its lower surface. Generally three degrees of clearance or down suction are recognised: regular for light soil, deep for ordinary dry soil, and double-deep for clay and gravelly soils.
As the share wears away, it becomes blunt and the plough will require more power to pull it through the soil. A plough body with a worn share will not have enough "suck" to ensure it delves the ground to its full working depth.
![Traditional Filipino water buffalo plows](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Traditional_Filipino_water_buffalo_plows.png)
In addition, the share has horizontal suction related to the amount its point is bent out of line with the land side. Down suction causes the plough to penetrate to proper depth when pulled forward, while horizontal suction causes the plough to create the desired width of furrow. The share is a plane part with a trapezoidal shape. It cuts the soil horizontally and lifts it. Common types are regular, winged-plane, bar-point, and share with mounted or welded point. The regular share conserves a good cut but is recommended on stone-free soils. The winged-plane share is used on heavy soil with a moderate amount of stones. The bar-point share can be used in extreme conditions (hard and stony soils). The share with a mounted point is somewhere between the last two types. Makers have designed shares of various shapes (trapesium, diamond, etc.) with bolted point and wings, often separately renewable. Sometimes the share-cutting edge is placed well in advance of the mould board to reduce the pulverizing action of the soil.
The mould board is the part of the plough that receives the furrow slice from the share.
It is responsible for lifting and turning the furrow slice and sometimes for shattering it, depending on the type of mould board, ploughing depth and soil conditions. The intensity of this depends on the type of mould board. To suit different soil conditions and crop requirements, mould boards have been designed in different shapes, each producing its own furrow profile and surface finish, but essentially they still conform to the original plough body classification. The various types have been traditionally classified as general purpose, digger, and semi-digger, as described below.
![Farmer plowing with two horses - DPLA - ae96f85f2f065d6aeaaa730a3ed98318](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Farmer_plowing_with_two_horses_-_DPLA_-_ae96f85f2f065d6aeaaa730a3ed98318.jpg)
*The general-purpose mould board. This has a low draft body with a gentle, cross-sectional convex curve from top to bottom, which turns a furrow three parts wide by two parts deep, e. g. wide by deep. It turns the furrow slice slowly almost without breaking it, and is normally used for shallow ploughing (maximum depth). It is useful for grassland ploughing and sets up the land for weathering by winter frosts, which reduces the time taken to prepare a seedbed for spring sown crops.
*The digger mould board is short, abruptly curved with a concave cross-section both from top to bottom and from shin to tail. It turns the furrow slice rapidly, giving maximum shatter, deeper than its width. It is normally used for very deep ploughing ( deep or more). It has a higher power requirement and leaves a very broken surface. Digger ploughs are mainly used for land for potatoes and other root crops.
*The semi-digger mould board is somewhat shorter than the general-purpose mould board, but with a concave cross-section and a more abrupt curve. Being intermediate between the two mould boards described above, it has a performance that comes in between (approximately deep), with less shattering than the digger mouldboard. It turns an almost square-sectioned furrow and leaves a more broken surface finish. Semi-digger mould boards can be used at various depths and speeds, which suits them for most of the general ploughing on a farm.
*In addition, slatted mould boards are preferred by some farmers, though they are a less common type. They consist of a number of curved steel slats bolted to the frog along the length of the mould board, with gaps between the slats. They tend to break up the soil more than a full mould board and improve soil movement across the mould board when working in sticky soils where a solid mould board does not scour well.
![Steel plough, Emly](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Steel_plough%2C_Emly.jpg)
The land side is the flat plate which presses against and transmits the lateral thrust of the plough bottom to the furrow wall. It helps to resist the side pressure exerted by the furrow slice on the mould board. It also helps to stabilise the plough while in operation. The rear bottom end of the landslide, which rubs against the furrow sole, is known as the heel. A heel iron is bolted to the end of the rear of the land side and helps to support the back of the plough. The land side and share are arranged to give a "lead" towards the unploughed land, so helping to sustain the correct furrow width. The land side is usually made of solid medium-carbon steel and is very short, except at the rear bottom of the plough. The heel or rear end of the rear land side may be subject to excessive wear if the rear wheel is out of adjustment, and so a chilled iron heel piece is frequently used. This is inexpensive and can be easily replaced. The land side is fastened to the frog by plough bolts.
The frog (standard) is the central part of the plough bottom to which the other components of the bottom are attached. It is an irregular piece of metal, which may be made of cast iron for cast iron ploughs or welded steel for steel ploughs. The frog is the foundation of the plough bottom. It takes the shock resulting from hitting rocks, and therefore should be tough and strong. The frog is in turn fastened to the plough frame.
A runner extending from behind the share to the rear of the plough controls the direction of the plough, because it is held against the bottom land-side corner of the new furrow being formed. The holding force is the weight of the sod, as it is raised and rotated, on the curved surface of the mould board. Because of this runner, the mould board plough is harder to turn around than the scratch plough, and its introduction brought about a change in the shape of fieldsfrom mostly square fields into longer rectangular "strips" (hence the introduction of the
furlong
A furlong is a measure of distance in imperial units and United States customary units equal to one eighth of a mile, equivalent to 660 feet, 220 yards, 40 rods, 10 chains or approximately 201 metres. It is now mostly confined to use in hor ...
).
Iron ploughshare
An advance on the basic design was the iron ploughshare, a replaceable horizontal cutting surface mounted on the tip of the share. The earliest ploughs with a detachable and replaceable share date from around 1000 BC in the
Ancient Near East
The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ...
, and the earliest iron ploughshares from about 500 BC in China.
[Robert Greenberger, ''The Technology of Ancient China'' (New York: Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 2006), pp. 11–12.] Early mould boards were wedges that sat inside the cut formed by the coulter, turning over the soil to the side. The ploughshare spread the cut horizontally below the surface, so that when the mould board lifted it, a wider area of soil was turned over. Mould boards are known in Britain from the late 6th century onwards.
![Aratro 1849](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Aratro_1849.jpg)
Types
The mould-board plough type is usually set by the method with which the plough is attached to the tractor and the way it is lifted and carried. The basic types are:
*Three wheel trailing typeattached to the standard tractor draw bar and carried on its own three wheels
*Mounted or integramost use a three-point hitch and have a rear wheel in use only when ploughing. Some also have a gauge wheel to regulate maximum depth.
*Semi-mountedused principally for larger ploughs. These have a rear wheel which usually carries weight and side thrust when ploughing and sometimes the weight of the rear end of the plough when lifted. The front end of the plough is carried on the tractor lower or draft links.
Plough wheel
*The gauge wheel is an auxiliary wheel to maintain uniform depths of ploughing in various soil conditions. It is usually placed in a hanging position.
*The land wheel of the plough runs on the ploughed land.
*The front or rear furrow wheel of the plough runs in the furrow.
Plough protective devices
When a plough hits a rock or other solid obstruction, serious damage may result unless the plough is equipped with some safety device. The damage may be bent or broken shares, bent standards, beams or braces.
The three basic types of safety devices used on mould-board ploughs are a spring release device in the plough drawbar, a trip beam construction on each bottom, and an automatic reset design on each bottom.
The spring release was used in the past almost universally on trailing-type ploughs with one to three or four bottoms. It is not practical on larger ploughs. When an obstruction is encountered, the spring release mechanism in the hitch permits the plough to uncouple from the tractor. When a hydraulic lift is used on the plough, the hydraulic hoses will also usually uncouple automatically when the plough uncouples. Most plough makers offer an automatic reset system for tough conditions or rocky soils. The re-set mechanism allows each body to move rearward and upward to pass without damage over obstacles such as rocks hidden below soil surface. A heavy leaf or coil-spring mechanism that holds the body in its working position under normal conditions resets the plough after the obstruction is passed.
Another type of auto-reset mechanism uses an oil (hydraulic) and gas accumulator. Shock loads cause the oil to compress the gas. When the gas expands again, the leg returns to its working ploughing position after passing over the obstacle. The simplest mechanism is a breaking (shear) bolt that needs replacement. Shear bolts that break when a plough body hits an obstruction are a cheaper overload protection device.
Trip-beam ploughs are constructed with a hinge point in the beam. This is usually located some distance above the top of the plough bottom. The bottom is held in normal ploughing position by a spring-operated latch. When an obstruction is encountered, the entire bottom is released and hinges back and up to pass over the obstruction. It is necessary to back up the tractor and plough to reset the bottom. This construction is used to protect the individual bottoms. The automatic reset design has only recently been introduced on US ploughs, but has been used extensively on European and Australian ploughs. Here the beam is hinged at a point almost above the point of the share. The bottom is held in the normal position by a set of springs or a hydraulic cylinder on each bottom.
When an obstruction is encountered, the plough bottom hinges back and up in such a way as to pass over the obstruction, without stopping the tractor and plough. The bottom automatically returns to normal ploughing position as soon as the obstruction is passed, without any interruption of forward motion. The automatic reset design permits higher field efficiencies since stopping for stones is practically eliminated. It also reduces costs for broken shares, beams and other parts. The fast resetting action helps produce a better job of ploughing, as large areas of unploughed land are not left, as they are when lifting a plough over a stone.
Loy ploughing
Manual loy ploughing was a form used on small farms in Ireland where farmers could not afford more, or on hilly ground that precluded horses.
It was used up until the 1960s in poorer land.
It suited the moist Irish climate, as the trenches formed by turning in the sods provided drainage. It allowed potatoes to be grown in bogs (peat swamps) and on otherwise unfarmed mountain slopes.
Heavy ploughs
![ChineseIronPlow1637](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/ChineseIronPlow1637.jpg)
In the basic mould-board plough, the depth of cut is adjusted by lifting against the runner in the furrow, which limited the weight of the plough to what a ploughman could easily lift. This limited the construction to a small amount of wood (although metal edges were possible). These ploughs were fairly fragile and unsuitable for the heavier soils of northern Europe. The introduction of wheels to replace the runner allowed the weight of the plough to increase, and in turn the use of a larger mould-board faced in metal. These ''heavy ploughs'' led to greater food production and eventually a marked population increase, beginning around AD 1000.
Before the
Han Dynasty
The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...
(202 BCAD 220), Chinese ploughs were made almost wholly of wood except for the iron blade of the ploughshare. These were V-shaped iron pieces mounted on wooden blades and handles.
By the Han period the entire ploughshare was made of
cast iron
Cast iron is a class of iron– carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impur ...
. These are the earliest known heavy, mould-board iron ploughs.
Several advancements such as the three-shared plow, the plow-and-sow implement, and the harrow were developed subsequently. By the end of the
Song dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
in 1279, Chinese ploughs had reached a state of development that would not be seen in
Holland
Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th c ...
until the 17th century.
The Romans achieved a heavy-wheeled mould-board plough in the late 3rd and 4th century AD, for which archaeological evidence appears, for instance, in
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the period in classical antiquity when large parts of the island of Great Britain were under occupation by the Roman Empire. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. During that time, the territory conquered wa ...
. The Greek and Roman mould-boards were usually tied to the bottom of the shaft with bits of rope, which made them more fragile than the Chinese ones, and iron mould-boards did not appear in Europe until the 10th century.
The first indisputable appearance after the Roman period is in a northern Italian document of 643. Old words connected with the heavy plough and its use appear in
Slavic, suggesting possible early use in that region. General adoption of the
carruca The carruca or caruca was a kind of heavy plow important to medieval agriculture in Northern Europe. The carruca used a heavy iron plowshare to turn heavy soil and may have required a team of eight oxen. The carruca also bore a coulter and moldboa ...
heavy plough in Europe seems to have accompanied adoption of the
three-field system
The three-field system is a regime of crop rotation in which a field is planted with one set of crops one year, a different set in the second year, and left fallow in the third year. A set of crops is ''rotated'' from one field to another. The tec ...
in the later 8th and early 9th centuries, leading to improved agricultural productivity per unit of land in northern Europe. This was accompanied by larger fields, known variously as
carucate
The carucate or carrucate ( lat-med, carrūcāta or ) was a medieval unit of land area approximating the land a plough team of eight oxen could till in a single annual season. It was known by different regional names and fell under different forms ...
s, ploughlands, and plough gates.
Improved designs
![Plough](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Plough.JPG)
The basic plough with coulter, ploughshare and mould board remained in use for a millennium. Major changes in design spread widely in the
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
, when there was rapid progress in design. Joseph Foljambe in
Rotherham
Rotherham () is a large minster and market town in South Yorkshire, England. The town takes its name from the River Rother which then merges with the River Don. The River Don then flows through the town centre. It is the main settlement of ...
, England, in 1730, used new shapes based on the Rotherham plough, which covered the mould board with iron. Unlike the heavy plough, the Rotherham, or Rotherham swing plough consisted entirely of the coulter, mould board and handles. It was much lighter than earlier designs and became common in England. It may have been the first plough widely built in factories and commercially successful there.
In 1789
Robert Ransome, an
iron founder An iron founder (also iron-founder or ironfounder) in its more general sense is a worker in molten ferrous metal, generally working within an iron foundry. However, the term 'iron founder' is usually reserved for the owner or manager of an iron foun ...
in
Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...
, started casting ploughshares in a disused malting at St Margaret's Ditches. A broken mould in his foundry caused molten metal to come into contact with cold metal, making the metal surface extremely hard. This process, chilled casting, resulted in what Ransome advertised as "self-sharpening" ploughs. He received patents for his discovery.
James Small further advanced the design. Using mathematical methods, he eventually arrived at a shape cast from a single piece of iron, an improvement on the ''Scots plough'' of
James Anderson of Hermiston
James Anderson FRSE FSAScot (1739 – 15 October 1808)
was a Scottish agriculturist, journalist and economist. A member of the Edinburgh Philosophical Society, Anderson was a prominent figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. He invented the Sco ...
. A single-piece cast-iron plough was also developed and patented by
Charles Newbold in the United States. This was again improved on by
Jethro Wood, a blacksmith of
Scipio, New York
Scipio is a town in Cayuga County, New York, United States. The population was 1,713 at the 2010 census. Scipio is centrally located in the southern half of the county, south of Auburn.
History
Scipio was part of the Central New York Military ...
, who made a three-part Scots plough that allowed a broken piece to be replaced. In 1833 John Lane invented a steel plough. Then in 1837
John Deere introduced a
steel plough; it was much stronger than iron designs that it could work soil in US areas previously thought unsuitable for farming.
Improvements on this followed developments in metallurgy: steel coulters and shares with softer iron mould boards to prevent breakage, the chilled plough (an early example of
surface-hardened steel), and eventually mould boards with faces strong enough to dispense with the coulter.
By the time of the early 1900s, the steel plough had many uses, shapes and names. The "two horse breaking plough" had a point and wing used to break the soil's surface and turn the dirt out and over.
The "shovel plough" was used to lay off the rows.
The "harrow plough" was used to cover the planted seed.
The "scratcher" or "geewhiz" was used to deweed or cultivate the crop.
The "bulltongue" and "sweeps" were used to plough the middle of the rows.
All these metal plough points required being re-sharpened about every ten days, due to their use on rough and rocky ground.
Single-sided ploughing
![Ploughing match from The Powerhouse Museum Collection](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Ploughing_match_from_The_Powerhouse_Museum_Collection.jpg)
The first mould-board ploughs could only turn the soil over in one direction (
conventionally to the right), as dictated by the shape of the mould board; therefore, a field had to be ploughed in long strips, or ''lands''. The plough was usually worked clockwise around each land, ploughing the long sides and being dragged across the short sides without ploughing. The length of the strip was limited by the distance oxen (later horses) could comfortably work without rest, and their width by the distance the plough could conveniently be dragged. These distances determined the traditional size of the strips: a
furlong
A furlong is a measure of distance in imperial units and United States customary units equal to one eighth of a mile, equivalent to 660 feet, 220 yards, 40 rods, 10 chains or approximately 201 metres. It is now mostly confined to use in hor ...
, (or "furrow's length", ) by a
chain () – an area of one acre (about 0.4 hectares); this is the origin of the
acre. The one-sided action gradually moved soil from the sides to the centre line of the strip. If the strip was in the same place each year, the soil built up into a ridge, creating the
ridge and furrow
Ridge and furrow is an archaeological pattern of ridges (Medieval Latin: ''sliones'') and troughs created by a system of ploughing used in Europe during the Middle Ages, typical of the open-field system. It is also known as rig (or rigg) and f ...
topography still seen in some ancient fields.
Turn-wrest plough
The turn-wrest plough allows ploughing to be done to either side. The mould board is removable, turning to the right for one furrow, then being moved to the other side of the plough to turn to the left. (The coulter and ploughshare are fixed.) Thus adjacent furrows can be ploughed in opposite directions, allowing ploughing to proceed continuously along the field and so avoid the ridge–furrow topography.
Reversible plough
![Vendeplog](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Vendeplog.jpg)
The reversible (or roll-over) plough has two mould-board ploughs mounted back to back, one turning right, the other left. While one works the land, the other is borne upside-down in the air. At the end of each row the paired ploughs are turned over so that the other can be used along the next furrow, again working the field in a consistent direction.
These ploughs date back to the days of the steam engine and the horse. In almost universal use on farms, they have right and left-handed mould boards, enabling them to work up and down the same furrow. Reversible ploughs may either be mounted or semi-mounted and are heavier and more expensive than right-handed models, but have the great advantage of leaving a level surface that facilitates seedbed preparation and harvesting. Very little marking out is necessary before ploughing can start; idle running on the headland is minimal compared with conventional ploughs.
Driving a tractor with furrow-side wheels in the furrow bottom provides the most efficient line of draught between tractor and plough. It is also easier to steer the tractor; driving with the front wheel against the furrow wall will keep the front furrow at the correct width. This is less satisfactory when using a tractor with wide front tyres. Although these make better use of the tractor power, the tyres may compact some of the last furrow slice turned on the previous run. The problem is overcome by using a furrow widener or longer mould board on the rear body. The latter moves the soil further towards the ploughed land, leaving more room for the tractor wheels on the next run.
Driving with all four wheels on unploughed land is another solution to the problem of wide tyres. Semi-mounted ploughs can be hitched in a way that allows the tractor to run on unbroken land and pull the plough in correct alignment without any sideways movement (crabbing).
Riding and multiple-furrow ploughs
![OldPlow2006-05-21](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/OldPlow2006-05-21.JPG)
Early steel ploughs were walking ploughs, directed by a ploughman holding handles on either side of the plough. Steel ploughs were so much easier to draw through the soil that constant adjustment of the blade to deal with roots or clods was no longer necessary, as the plough could easily cut through them. Not long after that the first riding ploughs appeared, whose wheels kept the plough at an adjustable level above the ground, while the ploughman sat on a seat instead of walking. Direction was now controlled mostly through the draught team, with levers allowing fine adjustments. This led quickly to riding ploughs with multiple mould boards, which dramatically increased ploughing performance.
A single draught horse can normally pull a single-furrow plough in clean light soil, but in heavier soils two horses are needed, one walking on the land and one in the furrow. Ploughs with two or more furrows call for more than two horses, and usually one or more have to walk on the ploughed sod, which is hard going for them and means they tread newly ploughed land down. It is usual to rest such horses every half-hour for about ten minutes.
Improving metallurgy and design
John Deere, an
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...
blacksmith, noted that ploughing many sticky, non-sandy soils might benefit from modifications in the design of the mould board and the metals used. A polished needle would enter leather and fabric with greater ease and a polished pitchfork also require less effort. Looking for a polished, slicker surface for a plough, he experimented with portions of saw blades, and by 1837 was making polished, cast steel ploughs. The energy required was lessened, which enabled the use of larger ploughs and more effective use of horse power.
Balance plough
The invention of the mobile
steam engine allowed steam power to be applied to ploughing from about 1850. In Europe, soil conditions were often too soft to support the weight of a
traction engine
A traction engine is a steam engine, steam-powered tractor used to move heavy loads on roads, plough ground or to provide power at a chosen location. The name derives from the Latin ''tractus'', meaning 'drawn', since the prime function of any t ...
. Instead, counterbalanced, wheeled ploughs, known as ''balance ploughs'', were drawn by cables across the fields by pairs of
ploughing engine
A traction engine is a steam-powered tractor used to move heavy loads on roads, plough ground or to provide power at a chosen location. The name derives from the Latin ''tractus'', meaning 'drawn', since the prime function of any traction engin ...
s on opposite field edges, or by a single engine drawing directly towards it at one end and drawing away from it via a pulley at the other. The balance plough had two sets of facing ploughs arranged so that when one was in the ground, the other was lifted in the air. When pulled in one direction, the trailing ploughs were lowered onto the ground by the tension on the cable. When the plough reached the edge of the field, the other engine pulled the opposite cable, and the plough tilted (balanced), putting the other set of shares into the ground, and the plough worked back across the field.
![Heißdampf-Kipppflug](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Hei%C3%9Fdampf-Kipppflug.jpg)
One set of ploughs was right-handed and the other left-handed, allowing continuous ploughing along the field, as with the
turn-wrest and
reversible ploughs. The man credited with inventing the ploughing engine and associated balance plough in the mid-19th century was
John Fowler, an English agricultural engineer and inventor. However the Fisken brothers demonstrated (and went on to patent) a balance plough about 4 years before Fowler.
One notable producer of steam-powered ploughs was
J.Kemna of Eastern Prussia, who became the "leading steam plough company on the European continent and penetrated the monopoly of English companies on the world market" at the beginning of the 20th century.
Stump-jump plough
![Disc ploughs from The Powerhouse Museum Collection](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Disc_ploughs_from_The_Powerhouse_Museum_Collection.jpg)
The
stump-jump plough
The stump-jump plough, also known as stump-jumping plough, is a kind of plough invented in South Australia in the late 19th century by Richard Bowyer Smith and Clarence Herbert Smith to solve the particular problem of preparing mallee lands fo ...
, an Australian invention of the 1870s, is designed to break up new farming land that contains tree stumps and rocks expensive to remove. It uses a moveable weight to hold the ploughshare in position. When a tree stump or rock is encountered, the ploughshare is thrown up clear of the obstacle, to avoid breaking its harness or linkage. Ploughing can continue when the weight is returned to the earth.
A simpler, later system uses a concave disc (or pair of them) set at a wide angle to the direction of progress, using a concave shape to hold the disc into the soilunless something hard strikes the circumference of the disc, causing it to roll up and over the obstruction. As this is dragged forward, the sharp edge of the disc cuts the soil, and the concave surface of the rotating disc lifts and throws the soil to the side. It does not work as well as a mould-board plough (but this is not seen as a drawback, because it helps to fight wind erosion), but it does lift and break up the soil (''see''
disc harrow
A disc harrow is a harrow whose cutting edges are a row of concave metal discs, which may be scalloped or set at an oblique angle. It is an agricultural implement that is used to till the soil where crops are to be planted. It is also used to ...
).
Modern ploughs
Modern ploughs are usually multiply reversible, mounted on a tractor with a
three-point linkage
The three-point hitch (British English: three-point linkage) is a widely used type of hitch for attaching ploughs and other implements to an agricultural or industrial tractor. The three points resemble either a triangle, or the letter A. Three-p ...
. These commonly have from two to as many as seven mould boardsand semi-mounted ploughs (whose lifting is assisted by a wheel about halfway along their length) can have as many as 18. The tractor's hydraulics are used to lift and reverse the implement and to adjust furrow width and depth. The plougher still has to set the draughting linkage from the tractor, so that the plough keeps the proper angle in the soil. This angle and depth can be controlled automatically by modern tractors. As a complement to the rear plough a two or three mould-board plough can be mounted on the front of the tractor if it is equipped with front three-point linkage.
Specialist ploughs
Chisel plough
The ''chisel plough'' is a common tool for deep tillage (prepared land) with limited soil disruption. Its main function is to loosen and aerate the soils, while leaving crop residue on top. This plough can be used to reduce the effects of soil compaction and to help break up
ploughpan and
hardpan
In soil science, agriculture and gardening, hardpan or soil pan is a dense layer of soil, usually found below the uppermost topsoil layer. There are different types of hardpan, all sharing the general characteristic of being a distinct soil layer ...
. Unlike many other ploughs, the chisel will not invert or turn the soil. This feature has made it a useful addition to
no-till
No-till farming (also known as zero tillage or direct drilling) is an agricultural technique for growing crops or pasture without disturbing the soil through tillage. No-till farming decreases the amount of soil erosion tillage causes in certai ...
and low-till farming practices that attempt to maximise the erosion-preventing benefits of keeping organic matter and farming residues present on the soil surface throughout the year. Thus the chisel plough is considered by some to be more
sustainable than other types of plough, such as the
mould-board plough.
![JDTractor chisel-plough](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/JDTractor_chisel-plough.jpg)
Chisel ploughs are becoming more popular as a primary tillage tool in row-crop farming areas. Basically the chisel plough is a heavy-duty field cultivator intended to operate at depths from to as much as . However some models may run much deeper. Each individual plough or shank is typically set from to apart. Such a plough can meet significant soil drag: a
tractor
A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most commo ...
of sufficient power and traction is required. When ploughing with a chisel plough, per shank is required, depending on depth.
Pull-type chisel ploughs are made in working widths from about up to . They are tractor-mounted, and working depth is hydraulically controlled. Those more than about wide may be equipped with folding wings to reduce transport width. Wider machines may have the wings supported by individual wheels and hinge joints to allow flexing of the machine over uneven ground. The wider models usually have a wheel each side to control working depth. Three-point hitch-mounted units are made in widths from about .
Cultivator
A cultivator is a piece of agricultural equipment used for secondary tillage. One sense of the name refers to frames with ''teeth'' (also called ''shanks'') that pierce the soil as they are dragged through it linearly. It also refers to ...
s are often similar in form to chisel ploughs, but their goals are different. Cultivator teeth work near the surface, usually for weed control, whereas chisel plough shanks work deep under the surface; therefore, cultivation takes much less power per shank than does chisel ploughing.
Country plough
The country plough is a slanted plough. The most common plough in India, it is recommended for crops like groundnut after the use of a tractor.
Ridging plough
A ridging plough is used for crops such as
potato
The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.
Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...
es or
scallion
Scallions (also known as spring onions or green onions) are vegetables derived from various species in the genus '' Allium''. Scallions generally have a milder taste than most onions and their close relatives include garlic, shallot, leek, c ...
s grown buried in ridges of soil, using a technique called ''ridging'' or ''
hilling
Hilling, earthing up or ridging is the technique in agriculture and horticulture of piling soil up around the base of a plant. It can be done by hand (usually using a hoe), or with powered machinery, typically a tractor attachment.
Hilling burie ...
''. A ridging plough has two back-to-back mould boards cutting a deep furrow on each pass with high ridges either side. The same plough may be used to split the ridges to harvest the crop.
Scots hand plough
This variety of ridge plough is notable for having a blade pointing towards the operator. It is used solely by human effort rather than with animal or machine assistance and pulled backwards by the operator, requiring great physical effort. It is particularly used for second breaking of ground and for potato planting. It is found in Shetland, some western crofts, and more rarely Central Scotland, typically on holdings too small or poor to merit the use of animals.
Mole plough
The mole plough allows under-drainage to be installed without trenches, or breaks up the deep impermeable soil layers that impede it. It is a deep plough with a torpedo or wedge-shaped tip and a narrow blade connecting it to the body. When dragged over ground, it leaves a channel deep under it that acts as a drain. Modern mole ploughs may also bury a flexible perforated plastic drain pipe as they go, making a more permanent drainor may be used to lay pipes for water supply or other purposes. Similar machines, so-called
pipe-and-cable-laying plough
A pipe-and-cable-laying plough or moleplough is a method to bury cables or pipes.
The machinery is a form of a subsoiler with a single blade. It is used to lay buried services of virtually any description, for drainage, water, electricity, telecomm ...
s, are even used under the sea for laying cables or for preparing the earth for
side-scan sonar
Side-scan sonar (also sometimes called side scan sonar, sidescan sonar, side imaging sonar, side-imaging sonar and bottom classification sonar) is a category of sonar system that is used to efficiently create an image of large areas of the sea ...
in a process used in
oil exploration
Hydrocarbon exploration (or oil and gas exploration) is the search by petroleum geologists and geophysicists for deposits of hydrocarbons, particularly petroleum and natural gas, in the Earth using petroleum geology.
Exploration methods
Vis ...
.
Compacting a tennis ball-sized sample from moling depth by hand, then pushing a pencil through is a simple check to find if the subsoil is in the right condition for mole ploughing. If the hole stays intact without splitting the ball, the soil is in ideal condition for the mole plough.
Heavy land requires draining to reduce its water content to a level efficient for plant growth. Heavy soils usually have a system of permanent drains, using perforated plastic or clay pipes that discharge into a ditch. The small tunnels (mole drains) that mole ploughs form lie at a depth of up to at an angle to the pipe drains. Water from the mole drains seeps into the pipes and runs along them into a ditch.
Mole ploughs are usually trailed and pulled by a crawler tractor, but lighter models for use on the three-point linkage of powerful four-wheel drive tractors are also made. A mole plough has a strong frame that slides along the ground when the machine is at work. A heavy leg, similar to a sub-soiler leg, is attached to the frame and a circular section with a larger diameter expander on a flexible link is bolted to the leg. The bullet-shaped share forms a tunnel in the soil about diameter and the expander presses the soil outwards to form a long-lasting drainage channel.
Para-plough
The para-plough, or paraplow, loosens compacted soil layers 3 to 4 dm (12 to 16 inches) deep while maintaining high surface residue levels.
It is primary tillage implement for deep ploughing without inversion.
Spade plough
The spade plough is designed to cut the soil and turn it on its side, minimising damage to earthworms, soil microorganism and fungi. This increases the sustainability and long-term fertility of the soil.
Switch plough
Using a bar with square shares mounted perpendicularly and a pivot point to change the bar's angle, the switch plough allows ploughing in either direction. It is best in previously-worked soils, as the ploughshares are designed more to turn the soil over than for deep tillage. At the headland, the operator pivots the bar (and so the ploughshares) to turn the soil to the opposite side of the direction of travel. Switch ploughs are usually lighter than roll-over ploughs, requiring less horsepower to operate.
Effects of mould-board ploughing
Mould-board ploughing in cold and temperate climates, down to , aerates the soil by loosening it. It incorporates crop residues, solid manures, limestone and commercial fertilisers alongside oxygen, so reducing nitrogen losses by denitrification, accelerating mineralisation and raising short-term nitrogen availability for turning organic matter into humus. It erases wheel tracks and ruts from harvesting equipment. It controls many perennial weeds and delays the growth of others until spring. It accelerates spring soil warming and water evaporation due to lower residues on the soil surface. It facilitates seeding with a lighter seed, controls many crop enemies (
slugs
Slug, or land slug, is a common name for any apparently shell-less terrestrial gastropod mollusc. The word ''slug'' is also often used as part of the common name of any gastropod mollusc that has no shell, a very reduced shell, or only a sma ...
,
crane flies,
seedcorn maggots-bean seed flies, borers), and raises the number of "soil-eating" earthworms (endogic), but deters vertical-dwelling earthworms (anecic).
Ploughing leaves little crop residue on the surface that might otherwise reduce both wind and water erosion. Over-ploughing can lead to the formation of
hardpan
In soil science, agriculture and gardening, hardpan or soil pan is a dense layer of soil, usually found below the uppermost topsoil layer. There are different types of hardpan, all sharing the general characteristic of being a distinct soil layer ...
. Typically, farmers break that up with a
subsoiler, which acts as a long, sharp knife slicing through the hardened layer of soil deep below the surface.
Soil erosion due to improper land and plough utilisation is possible.
Contour ploughing
Contour bunding or contour farming or Contour ploughing is the farming practice of plowing and/or planting across a slope following its elevation contour lines. These contour lines create a water break which reduces the formation of rills and gu ...
mitigates soil erosion by ploughing across a slope, along elevation lines. Alternatives to ploughing, such as a
no-till method, have the potential to build soil levels and humus. These may be suitable for smaller, intensively cultivated plots and for farming on poor, shallow or degraded soils that ploughing would further degrade.
Depictions
File:100 Mark 1908 back 01 09.jpg, Back side of a 100 mark
Mark may refer to:
Currency
* Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina
* East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic
* Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927
* F ...
banknote issued 1908
File:10 lire 1975 O.jpg, 1975 Italian lira
The lira (; plural lire) was the currency of Italy between 1861 and 2002. It was first introduced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1807 at par with the French franc, and was subsequently adopted by the different states that would eventually ...
coin
File:Robert Burns statue, Schenley Park, Pittsburgh - 1.jpg, Robert Burns
Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...
statue, Schenley Park
Schenley Park () is a large municipal park located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, between the neighborhoods of Oakland, Greenfield, and Squirrel Hill. It is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district. In 2011, th ...
, Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...
File:Copenhagen statue of Gefion.jpg, The Gefion Fountain
The Gefion Fountain ( da, Gefionspringvandet) is a large fountain on the harbour front in Copenhagen, Denmark. It features a large-scale group of oxen pulling a plow and being driven by the Norse goddess Gefjon. It is located in Nordre Toldbod ar ...
in Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
File:Henry Herbert La Thangue - The Last Furrow 1895.jpg, Henry Herbert La Thangue, ''The Last Furrow'', 1895
File:Rosa Bonheur - Ploughing in Nevers - Google Art Project.jpg, '' Ploughing in the Nivernais'' by Rosa Bonheur
Rosa Bonheur (born Marie-Rosalie Bonheur; 16 March 1822 – 25 May 1899) was a French artist known best as a painter of animals ( animalière). She also made sculpture in a realist style. Her paintings include ''Ploughing in the Nivernais'', fir ...
(1849)
File:Kemna Lokomotiven.jpg, Plough-usage was revolutionized with the advent of steam-locomotives (as seen in this German 1890s watercolor)
File:Young Folks' History of Rome illus090.png
File:Aura.vaakuna.svg, Plough pictured in the coat of arms of Aura
File:Flag of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati.svg, Flag of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati
The Archdiocese of Cincinnati ( la, Archidiœcesis Cincinnatensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or archdiocese that covers the southwest region of the U.S. state of Ohio, including the greater Cincinnati and Dayton metropolitan ...
See also
*
Boustrophedon
Boustrophedon is a style of writing in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, with letters also written in reverse, mirror-style. This is in contrast to modern European languages, where lines always begin on the same side, usually the le ...
(
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
: "ox-turning") — an ancient way of writing, each line being read in the opposite direction like reversible ploughing.
*
Conduit current collection
Conduit current collection is an obsolete system of electric current collection used by some electric tramways, where the power supply was carried in a 'conduit' (a small tunnel) under the roadway. Modern systems fall under the term ground-leve ...
*
Foot plough
The foot plough is a type of plough used like a spade with the foot in order to cultivate the ground.
New Zealand
Before the widespread use of metal farm tools from Europe, the Māori people used the , a version of the foot plough made entirely ...
*
Furrow profilometer
A furrow profilometer is used for the measurement of the cross-sectional geometry of furrows and corrugations, and is important in furrow assessments. For each furrow, the cross-sectional geometry should be measured at two to three locations before ...
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Headland (agriculture)
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History of agriculture
Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least eleven separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin.
The development of agriculture a ...
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Railroad plough
A railroad plough is a rail vehicle which supports an immensely strong, hook-shaped plough. It is used for destruction of sleepers in warfare, as part of a scorched earth policy, so that the track becomes unusable for the enemy.
In use, the plo ...
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Ransome Victory Plough
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Silviculture
Silviculture is the practice of controlling the growth, composition/structure, and quality of forests to meet values and needs, specifically timber production.
The name comes from the Latin ('forest') and ('growing'). The study of forests and wo ...
has a technique for preparing soil for seeding in forests called scarification, which is explained in that article.
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Snowplow
A snowplow (also snow plow, snowplough or snow plough) is a device intended for mounting on a vehicle, used for removing snow and ice from outdoor surfaces, typically those serving transportation purposes. Although this term is often used to re ...
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Whippletree
References
Further reading
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*Liam Brunt, "Mechanical Innovation in the Industrial Revolution: The Case of Plough Design". ''Economic History Review'' (2003) 56#3, pp. 444–477
*P. Hill and K. Kucharski, "Early Medieval Ploughing at Whithorn and the Chronology of Plough Pebbles", ''Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society'', Vol. LXV, 1990, pp 73–83
*V. Sankaran Nair, ''Nanchinadu: Harbinger of Rice and Plough Culture in the Ancient World''
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*Steven Stoll, ''Larding the Lean Earth: Soil and Society in Nineteenth-Century America'' (New York: Hill and Wang, 2002)
External links
The Rotherham Plough— ''the first commercially successful iron plough''
— ''as developed by John Deere in the United States''
Breast Ploughs and other antique hand farm tools"Tractor Guide Saves Labor for the Farmer" ''
Popular Mechanics
''Popular Mechanics'' (sometimes PM or PopMech) is a magazine of popular science and technology, featuring automotive, home, outdoor, electronics, science, do-it-yourself, and technology topics. Military topics, aviation and transportation o ...
'', December 1934
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Articles containing video clips
Chinese inventions
Farming tools
History of agriculture