Agriculture has come a long way since the age where farmers used oxen and plows. With the majority of the world now growing their own crops, exporting and importing them for their economic benefit, or otherwise having a greater degree of control over their own food supply, we needed to come up with better and more diverse ways to improve agricultural yield.
From agriculture spray machines to automated harvesters, we’ve created some truly mind-boggling pieces of agricultural equipment that can help us with all of our farming needs. Here are some of the machines that you might need on your farm:
Cultivators or Weed Cutters
These tools are responsible for “tilling” or the process of making sure the soil is ready for planting. Their primary function is to churn the soil to aerate it or kill weeds by carefully displacing them. More precise than harrows (which cut deeply into the soil) and plows (which is used to carve out grooves where seeds will be planted), cultivators are best used for weed control and are usually partnered with a tractor for easy use.
Seed Drillers
Sowing the seeds has also become more modernised than the usual trowel or sowing processes. Most farms today use a variation of a seed driller, a machine that evenly distributes and plants the seeds deep in the soil. This prevents the seeds from being wasted by growing too close together or being picked off by birds, which are the usual problems with just sowing them. The advantage this has over traditional hand-planting is immense. A properly deployed seed drill can increase the crop output of a field by more than half.
Sprayers
Like cultivators, sprayers do their part in weed and pest control, but they work on the crops themselves and not the soil. Farm sprayers are among the most common items you’ll see on large farms. They dispense pesticide to eliminate weeds or a special formulation for GMO crops. They can be as small as hand-held units or large enough to require entire vehicles. These play an important role in any farm with large spans of land and crops.
Swathers or Windrowers
When it comes to harvesting, few machines are as efficient as the swathers or windrowers. These tractor-pulled machines are responsible for cutting the crop by the stems and leaving them to dry in a swathe, making them easier to harvest and store once they’ve properly dried out. Better care is necessary to operate this type of machinery than the other ones on this list. The noise, size, and speed of the swather can be very deadly to anything else aside from grain, so the operator should exercise caution when using this.
Agricultural machinery will continue to change according to our food supply needs as the years go by. They can become smaller and more sophisticated. Soon enough, it can be possible for someone to grow their own food with the help of these machines on a smaller scale. You might also need them in the future.
