Agricultural machinery relates to the
mechanical structures and devices used in
farming or other
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...
. There are
many types of such equipment, from
hand tools and
power tools to
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 ...
s and the countless kinds of farm implements that they tow or operate. Diverse arrays of equipment are used in both
organic and nonorganic farming. Especially since the advent of
mechanised agriculture, agricultural machinery is an indispensable part of how the world is fed.
History
The Industrial Revolution
With the coming of 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 ...
and the development of more complicated machines, farming methods took a great leap forward. Instead of
harvesting
Harvesting is the process of gathering a ripe crop from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, or reaper. On smaller farms with minimal mechanization, harvesting is the most labor- ...
grain by hand with a sharp
blade
A blade is the portion of a tool, weapon, or machine with an edge that is designed to puncture, chop, slice or scrape surfaces or materials. Blades are typically made from materials that are harder than those they are to be used on. Histor ...
,
wheeled machines cut a continuous swath. Instead of
threshing
Threshing, or thrashing, is the process of loosening the edible part of grain (or other crop) from the straw to which it is attached. It is the step in grain preparation after reaping. Threshing does not remove the bran from the grain.
History ...
the grain by beating it with sticks,
threshing machines separated the
seed
A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiospe ...
s from the heads and stalks. The first tractors appeared in the late 19th century.
Steam power
Power
Power most often refers to:
* Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work"
** Engine power, the power put out by an engine
** Electric power
* Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events
** Abusive power
Power may a ...
for agricultural machinery was originally supplied by
ox or other
domesticated animals. With the invention of
steam power came the
portable engine, and later the
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 ...
, a multipurpose, mobile
energy source that was the ground-crawling cousin to the
steam locomotive. Agricultural
steam engines took over the heavy pulling work of
oxen, and were also equipped with a
pulley that could power stationary machines via the use of a long
belt. The
steam-powered machines were low-powered by today's standards but because of their size and their low
gear ratio
A gear train is a mechanical system formed by mounting gears on a frame so the teeth of the gears engage.
Gear teeth are designed to ensure the Pitch circle diameter (gears), pitch circles of engaging gears roll on each other without slipping, pr ...
s, they could provide a large
drawbar pull. The slow speed of steam-powered machines led farmers to comment that tractors had two speeds: "slow, and damn slow".
Internal combustion engines
The
internal combustion engine
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 c ...
; first the
petrol engine
A petrol engine (gasoline engine in American English) is an internal combustion engine designed to run on petrol (gasoline). Petrol engines can often be adapted to also run on fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas and ethanol blends (such as ' ...
, and later
diesel engine
The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-ca ...
s; became the main source of
power
Power most often refers to:
* Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work"
** Engine power, the power put out by an engine
** Electric power
* Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events
** Abusive power
Power may a ...
for the next generation of tractors. These engines also contributed to the development of the self-propelled
combine harvester and thresher, or the combine harvester (also shortened to 'combine'). Instead of cutting the grain stalks and transporting them to a stationary
threshing machine, these combines cut, threshed, and separated the grain while moving continuously throughout the field.
Agricultural machinery types
Tractors
Tractors
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 common ...
do the majority of work on a modern
farm. They are used to push/pull
implements—machines that till the ground, plant seed, and perform other tasks.
Tillage implements prepare the
soil
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt
Dirt is an unclean matter, especially when in contact with a person's clothes, skin, or possessions. In such cases, they are said to become dirty.
Common types of dirt include:
* Debri ...
for planting by loosening the soil and killing
weed
A weed is a plant considered undesirable in a particular situation, "a plant in the wrong place", or a plant growing where it is not wanted.Harlan, J. R., & deWet, J. M. (1965). Some thoughts about weeds. ''Economic botany'', ''19''(1), 16-24. ...
s or competing plants. The best-known is the
plow, the ancient implement that was upgraded in 1838 by
John Deere. Plows are now used less frequently in the
U.S.
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
than formerly, with offset disks used instead to turn over the soil, and
chisels used to gain the depth needed to retain moisture.
Combines
Combine is a machine designed to efficiently harvest a variety of grain crops. The name derives from its combining four separate harvesting operations—
reaping
Harvesting is the process of gathering a ripe crop from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, or reaper. On smaller farms with minimal mechanization, harvesting is the most labo ...
,
threshing
Threshing, or thrashing, is the process of loosening the edible part of grain (or other crop) from the straw to which it is attached. It is the step in grain preparation after reaping. Threshing does not remove the bran from the grain.
History ...
, gathering, and
winnowing
Winnowing is a process by which chaff is separated from grain. It can also be used to remove pests from stored grain. Winnowing usually follows threshing in grain preparation. In its simplest form, it involves throwing the mixture into the ...
—into a single process. Among the crops harvested with a combine are
wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
,
rice
Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...
,
oats
The oat (''Avena sativa''), sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural, unlike other cereals and pseudocereals). While oats are suitable for human co ...
,
rye,
barley,
corn (
maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...
),
sorghum,
soybeans,
flax (
linseed
Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. Textiles made from flax are known in W ...
),
sunflowers
''Helianthus'' () is a genus comprising about 70 species of annual and perennial flowering plants in the daisy family Asteraceae commonly known as sunflowers. Except for three South American species, the species of ''Helianthus'' are native to N ...
and
rapeseed
Rapeseed (''Brassica napus ''subsp.'' napus''), also known as rape, or oilseed rape, is a bright-yellow flowering member of the family Brassicaceae (mustard or cabbage family), cultivated mainly for its oil-rich seed, which naturally contains a ...
.
Planters
The most common type of seeder is called a
planter, and spaces seeds out equally in long rows, which are usually two to three feet apart. Some
crops are planted by
drills, which put out much more seed in rows less than a foot apart, blanketing the field with crops.
Transplanters automate the task of transplanting
seedlings to the field. With the widespread use of
plastic mulch
Plastic mulch is a product used in plasticulture in a similar fashion to mulch, to suppress weeds and conserve water in crop production and landscaping. Certain plastic mulches also act as a barrier to keep methyl bromide, both a powerful fumigant ...
, plastic mulch layers, transplanters, and seeders lay down long rows of
plastic
Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...
, and plant through them automatically.
Sprayers
After planting, other agricultural machinery such as self-propelled
sprayer
A sprayer is a device used to spray a liquid, where sprayers are commonly used for projection of water, weed killers, crop performance materials, pest maintenance chemicals, as well as manufacturing and production line ingredients. In agricultu ...
s can be used to apply
fertilizer and
pesticides. Agriculture sprayer application is a method to protect crops from weeds by using
herbicides,
fungicides
Fungicides are biocidal chemical compounds or biological organisms used to kill parasitic fungi or their spores. A fungistatic inhibits their growth. Fungi can cause serious damage in agriculture, resulting in critical losses of yield, quality ...
, and insecticides. Spraying or planting a cover crop are ways to mix weed growth.
Balers and other agriculture implements
Planting crop
Hay balers can be used to tightly package grass or
alfalfa into a storable form for the winter months. Modern
irrigation
Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been devel ...
relies on machinery. Engines,
pumps and other specialized gear provide
water
Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...
quickly and in high volumes to large areas of land. Similar types of equipment such as agriculture sprayers can be used to deliver
fertilizers and
pesticides.
Besides the tractor, other vehicles have been adapted for use in farming, including
truck
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame constructi ...
s,
airplanes, and
helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
s, such as for transporting crops and making equipment mobile, to aerial spraying and
livestock herd management.
New technology and the future
The basic technology of agricultural machines has changed little in the last century. Though modern harvesters and planters may do a better job or be slightly tweaked from their predecessors, the US$250,000 combine of today still cuts, threshes, and separates grain in the same way it has always been done. However, technology is changing the way that humans operate the machines, as
computer monitoring systems,
GPS
The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...
locators and self-steer programs allow the most advanced tractors and implements to be more precise and less wasteful in the use of fuel, seed, or fertilizer. In the foreseeable future, there may be mass production of
driverless tractors, which use GPS
map
A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.
Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...
s and electronic sensors.
Open source agricultural equipment
Many farmers are upset by their inability to fix the new types of high-tech farm equipment. This is due mostly to companies using
intellectual property law to prevent farmers from having the legal right to fix their equipment (or gain access to the information to allow them to do it). In October 2015 an exemption was added to the
DMCA
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...
to allow inspection and modification of the software in cars and other vehicles including agricultural machinery.
The Open Source Agriculture movement counts different initiatives and organizations such as Farm Labs which is a network in Europe, l'Atelier Paysan which is a cooperative to teach farmers in France how to build and repair their tools,
and Ekylibre which is an open-source company to provide farmers in France with open source software (
SaaS) to manage farming operations.
In the United States, the
MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...
's
Open Agriculture Initiative seeks to foster "the creation of an open-source ecosystem of technologies that enable and promote transparency, networked experimentation, education, and hyper-local production". It develops the
Personal Food Computer, an educational project to create a "controlled environment agriculture technology platform that uses robotic systems to control and monitor climate, energy, and plant growth inside of a specialized growing chamber". It includes the development of
Open Phenom, an open source library with open data sets for climate recipes which link the phenotype response of plants (taste, nutrition) to environmental variables, biological, genetic and resource-related necessary for cultivation (input).
Plants with the same genetics can naturally vary in color, size, texture, growth rate, yield, flavor, and nutrient density according to the environmental conditions in which they are produced.
Manufacturers
Active
*
AGCO
*
Agrale
*
Al-Ghazi Tractors
Al-Ghazi Tractors Ltd (AGTL) ( ur, ) is a Pakistani agricultural machinery manufacturer headquartered in Karachi with a tractor manufacturing plant located in Dera Ghazi Khan, Pakistan. It is the manufacturer of New Holland tractors in Pakistan ...
*
Algerian Tractors Company
*
Arbos
*
ARGO SpA
*
Carraro Agritalia
*
Case IH
Case IH is an American agricultural machinery manufacturer. It was created in 1985 when Tenneco bought selected assets of the agricultural division from International Harvester and merged it into its J.I. Case Company (IH then became Navistar).T ...
*
Challenger Tractors
Challenger is an American brand of agricultural tractors. Created by Caterpillar Inc. in 1986, the brand was sold to AGCO in 2002. Since then, Challenger tractors have been manufactured at the company's Jackson, Minnesota facility.
Production ...
*
Claas
*
CNH Industrial
*
Daedong
*
Deutz-Fahr
*
Escorts Limited
Escorts Kubota Limited formerly Escorts Limited is an Indian multinational conglomerate that operates in the sectors of agricultural machinery, construction machinery, material handling, and railway equipment. Its headquarters are located in ...
*
Fendt
*
Goldoni
*
Iseki
*
Jacto
*
JCB
*
John Deere
*
Kharkiv Tractor Plant
Kharkiv Tractor Plant (KhTZ or HTZ) ( uk, Харківський тракторний завод, translit=Kharkivskyi Traktornyi Zavod) is an agricultural machinery manufacturer in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Established in 1930-31, as a center ...
*
Kirov Plant
*
Kubota
*
Lamborghini Trattori
*
Landini
*
Lindner
*
LS Mtron
*
Mahindra Tractors
Mahindra Tractors is an Indian agricultural machinery manufacturer. It is part of the Mahindra & Mahindra corporation. In 2010, Mahindra became the world's highest-selling tractor brand by volume. Mahindra's largest consumer base is in India. I ...
*
Massey Ferguson
Massey Ferguson Limited is an American agricultural machinery manufacturer. The company was established in 1953 through the merger of farm equipment makers Massey-Harris of Canada and the Ferguson Company of the United Kingdom. It was based in ...
*
McCormick Tractors
*
Millat Tractors
*
Minsk Tractor Works
*
Mitsubishi Agricultural Machinery
*
New Holland Agriculture
*
Pronar
*
Shibaura
is a district of Minato ward located in Tokyo, Japan. The district is located between the eastern side of the Yamanote Line train and Tokyo Bay. Shibaura consists mostly of artificial islands created by the excavation of industrial canals in t ...
*
Sonalika Tractors
Sonalika Tractors is an Indian agricultural machinery manufacturer. The company was founded in 1995 in Punjab, India. It is the 3rd largest manufacturer of tractors in India, with the capacity to produce 3.00,000 tractors a year, as of June 2017. ...
*
SAME
*
SAS Motors
SAS Motors Limited (Angad) is a public limited company incorporated from April 2003 with the mission of making low-cost agricultural machinery available to Indian farmers. Its flagship product is Angad 240 D tractor. The company is engaged in sou ...
*
SDF Group
*
Stara
*
Steyr
*
TAFE
*
TYM
*
Ursus SA
*
Valpadana
*
Valtra
*
Versatile
*
Yanmar
is a Japanese diesel engine, heavy machinery and agricultural machinery manufacturer founded in Osaka, Japan in 1912. Yanmar manufactures and sells engines used in a wide range of applications, including seagoing vessels, pleasure boats, cons ...
*
YTO Group
*
Zetor
*
Zoomlion
Former
*
Allis-Chalmers
*
Case Corporation
The Case Corporation was a manufacturer of agricultural machinery and construction equipment. Founded, in 1842, by Jerome Increase Case as the J. I. Case Threshing Machine Company, it operated under that name for most of a century. For anot ...
*
Ferguson-Brown Company
The Ferguson-Brown Company was a British agricultural machinery manufacturing company formed by Harry Ferguson in partnership with David Brown.
Ferguson-Brown produced the Model A Ferguson-Brown tractor incorporating a Ferguson-designed hydr ...
*
Fiat Trattori
*
Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
*
International Harvester
*
Leyland Tractors
*
Massey-Harris
*
Renault Agriculture
Agricultural Machinery Providers
Aeco Export CompanyAeco Tractor PartsAeco Tractors UAE
See also
*
List of agricultural machinery
*
Mechanised agriculture
*
Agricultural machinery industry
*
Agricultural robot
An agricultural robot is a robot deployed for agricultural purposes. The main area of application of robots in agriculture today is at the harvesting stage. Emerging applications of robots or drones in agriculture include weed control, cloud s ...
References
External links
Hay Harvesting in the 1940s instructional films, Center for Digital Initiatives, University of Vermont LibraryWorldwide Agricultural Machinery and Farm Equipment DirectoryEconomic Situation of the agricultural machinery sector—VDMA Report
{{DEFAULTSORT:Agricultural Machinery
Agricultural machinery manufacturers
Machinery