Introduction

An outline about tillage is given in Introduction to Soil Tillage and further, Objectives of Tillage were presented in previous article. This article deals with the two categories of tillage based on the ‘time of requirement’ or seasonal requirement. These are;

1. On Season Tillage
2. Off-Season Tillage

1. On-Season Tillage

On-Season tillage is carried out for raising the crops in the same season.  In other words, this type of tillage is done at the beginning of the crop season. On season tillage may be regarded as the tillage carried out for preparatory cultivation and after cultivation.

     Preparatory Tillage

This tillage is carried out before sowing the crop so that beds can be prepared for cultivation of crop. The objective is to open the soil deeply, loose the hard soil rocks, aeration, remove weeds and larvae of pests to achieve the desirable tilth. It has further two types that are primary tillage and secondary tillage.

Primary Tillage

The tillage that is performed after harvesting the crop to bring the necessary changes in the soil condition for making land fit for cultivation for next crop is called as primary tillage or ploughing. In primary tillage, the compact soil is opened. This is done with the help of various kinds of agricultural engineering tools like Mold Board Plough, Tractor, Power Tiller, Bose Plough or Country Plough.

Secondary Tillage

Secondary tillage is performed to bring a good soil tilth after the primary tillage. In Secondary Tillage, finer or light sort of operation are carried out such as cleaning the soil, breaking the soil clods and incorporation of fertilizer or manure in the soil. Planking and Harrowing are conducted for Secondary Tillage operations.

     After Cultivation

After cultivation type of tillage is carried out when the crop is in standing position i.e. after the sowing or planting the crop. This means, this tillage is performed before harvesting the crop. This is also called Inter-Cultivation.  Tillage operations carried out in this type of tillage are weeding, hoeing, drilling, earthing up or side dressing of fertilizer. Weeders, Spade and Hoe are used in after cultivation tillage.

2. Off-Season Tillage

Conditioning of soil is called as off-season tillage. The purpose is to condition the soil suitably for the forthcoming main season crop. Post-Harvest Tillage, Winter or Summer Tillage and Fallow Tillage are various off-season tillage operations.

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