The Role of Agricultural Mechanization in Farming System in a Continental Climate

As is known, the use of mechanization for agriculture production have crucial importance for crop quality and yield in unit area. The mechanization of agricultural production is constantly renewing itself, depending on the time with the development of technology. For this reason, it is necessary to make determinations periodically for the current situation of the mechanization development in an agricultural area. Therefore, a study was conducted for a local area named Elbistan district, to put out agricultural potential and mechanization facilities used. For this purpose, a questionnaire was applied to this area including 5-village of 70 farms which were decided according to farmers recording system. Results indicated that 81% of the farms had only one-tractor while the rest of them had two-tractor which represent medium-sized tractors with average 60 kW of power. Massey Ferguson was most used tractor followed by Tümosan which were under economic life limit. It was also concluded that tractors mainly used for soil tillage practices with 45% followed by sowing (16%), transporters (14%), hoeing (9%), irrigation (8%), fertilizing (4%), spraying (2%), and other operations (2%). The machinery per tractor was found 7 which were completely performed in conventional farming system, especially in sugar beet, maize and wheat growing under dry farming. On the other hand, farm size was found very small mainly 5 decare by the rate of 44% which has similar to the type of parcels in our country while followed by 5-10 hectare with %25. Additionally, sugar beet was major popular crop and grown by 53% farmers because of available processing unit in the region. Maize was second crop grown by 27% while wheat was third one in this study area.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Agricultural mechanization, tractor, farming system

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