Tools for Soil Preparation
- Plough: A plough is a simple tool that farmers used in the past. It is triangular in shape and has a sharp pointed edge. Ploughs have traditionally been drawn by animals such as oxen, bulls, and so on. It is made up of three parts: the beam, the ploughshare, and the plough shaft.
- Hoe: A hoe is a simple tool for removing weeds and loosening the soil. It has a long wooden handle that is attached to various styles of iron blades. Animals in the agricultural fields also pull it.
- Cultivator: A cultivator is a sophisticated agricultural tool. It saves a significant amount of time, labour, and energy. It is used with a tractor to plough.
Preparation of Soil
Soil is a critical natural resource. Soil is the earth’s thin surface layer composed of mineral particles formed by the breakdown (weathering) of rocks, decayed organic materials, living organisms, water, and air.
Soil formation occurs through a variety of processes, including weathering of rocks and the mixing of rock materials with organic debris produced by plant decay; another process is a slow chemical alteration of water that seeps through weathered rock material after rains. Let us investigate what is causing the weathering! Weathering is the breakdown of rocks into smaller particles that eventually form soil, which also includes geological sediments and organic debris.