Study of tractive efficiency as an effect of ballast and tire inflation pressure in sandy loam soil

The experiments were conducted in sandy loam soil in stubble field.  Tillage operations were performed using   55 hp tractor with two bottom mouldboard plough and disc plough for four combinations of rear and front ballast (i.e. no ballast, 90 daN front, 90 daN front and 200 daN rear, 200 daN rear) and four combinations of inflation pressure in front and rear tires (i.e. 90 kPa rear and 140 kPa front, 90 kPa rear and 200 kPa front, 130 kPa rear and 140 kPa front and 130 kPa rear and 200 kPa front tire) to study their effects on tractive efficiency of tractor for primary tillage operations.  The test was conducted at recommended speed of operation 2.7 - 4 km h-1.  It was found from the results that combination of 200 daN rear ballast and inflation pressure of 130 kPa at rear, 200 kPa at front was found suitable for improving the performance of agricultural tractor with maximum tractive efficiency of 72.43% and 71.27% for mouldboard plough and disc plough respectively.   Keywords: tractor, ballast, inflation pressure, plough, tractive efficiency, sandy loam, primary tillag