Field performance of two and four wheeled tractors in paddy field preparation

Land preparation (tillage) is an important practice in rice cultivation. Developing convenient machinery for land preparation provides not only improved plowing quality and increased grain yield but reduces elapsed time and land preparation costs. Consolidation and alteration in size and configuration of paddy fields involve investigation and appraisal of tractors in terms of field performance. Comparisons were conducted over three types of tractors as two wheeled tractor or power tiller (Kubota GA 70, 5.2 kW), light-weight tractor (Darvana DTM 200, 14.9 kW) and medium-weight tractor (MF 285, 53 kW). Results revealed that effective field capacities for power tiller, light and medium-weight tractors were 0.082, 0.224 and 0.314 hah-1, respectively. Tested tractors were significantly different (p < 1%) in terms of falling cone penetration means after puddling. Cone penetrations after tillage for power tiller, MF 285 and Darvana were as 11.2, 16.1 and 13.7 cm, respectively. Fuel consumption (mean of two stages) was measured to be 2.05, 3.6, and 4.85 lith-1 for power tiller, Darvana, and MF 285, respectively. Fixed costs have comprised 15.76% of total machine cost for power tiller, but they were 39.1 and 49.91% for Darvana and MF285, respectively. Power tiller had higher operation cost than the four wheeled tractors.