Abstract

The efficiency of crop production technologies to a great extent depends on the selected tillage tools and their performance. The aim of this study was to assess general quantitative performance of various machinery tillage tools. At first stage of study, the general assessment of soil tillage tools with regard to crop yielding capacity was assessed. The task of the second stage of study was to assess the performance of modern tillage tools from the perspective capacity of tractors. The study showed that the most rational practice was alternation of soil tillage tools for different crops grown under various crop rotations. At the same time, the energy-saturated aggregates, on an average, showed the same indicators of specific fuel consumption, running speed and switch-over time utilization coefficient as that of the aggregates with tillage tools of less operating width. The primary advantage of the wide-cut aggregates was narrowed to reduction of labour input, the value of which was reciprocally proportional to the operating width of the given tool. The gain in specific materials consumption of the tillage tools outruned the intensity of their operating width, which had a non-linear increase in the machinery cost, the level of its negative impact on the territory, and it's more complicated exploitation. These drawbacks were compensated with a series of advantages with the decrease in the labour input. In case of introducing driverless tractors, the profit from the diligence of the aggregates with an increased operating width was to a great extent smoothed over. Thus, hypothetically the development of site-specific crop growing and automation of the agricultural processes will lead to the limitation of tractor capacity and operating width of the tools aggregated with them.