FIELD CAPACITIVE PERFORMANCE STUDY OF PLOUGHING OPERATION IN LAFIA L.G.A, NASARAWA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

In field machinery selection, the most pertinent variable is size or capacity of the machine. Size selection
of agricultural machinery should be based on anticipated performance. A field capacitive performance
study of ploughing operations was carried out on a small field of 0.49ha using a 3 x 1.5m- disc plough
pulled by an MF 375 (56kW) tractor. The analysis of the data generated from the time and motion studies
yielded a mean field efficiency of about 67%. The average effective width of cut of the plough was 1.39m
as against the theoretical width of plough of 1.5m. Analysis of the man- machine combination
performance yielded a maximum man-machine activity of 90% and a minimum of 85.9%. the mean man-machine
performance obtained was 0.2ha/hr. an average of 33% of total yield time was spent on nonproductive
activities while 67% was spent on productive (harrowing) activities. It is concluded that high
effective field capacities could be obtained with high speeds. Proper preventive maintenance will
minimize the number of field adjustments and also help in increasing implement width of utilization;
hence increase in field capacities.