Most Commonly Used Farm Machines Today

August 19, 2019

If you compare all industries nowadays with many years ago then you will, of course, see changes and a progression. However, none have been as quite as drastic as the farming and agricultural industry. The machines that are available to farmers today have allowed them to benefit from a much less labour intensive line of work. Practically everything is done by a machine at present. This has resulted in quicker completion of tasks and significant cost savings too. 

Keep on reading to discover more about the most common machinery utilised by farm owners today. When you consider the fact that the following tasks used to be done manually you will be able to see the mass progression that has occurred.

Plows

Let’s start off with the plow. What does this machine do? Essentially it loosens and turns the soil. Why? In order to enhance growth and deter the appearance of weeds. The interesting thing about this machine is the fact that it is actually one of the first every pieces of farming equipment. It dates back to 1000 AD!! However, plows were definitely a lot different then. For one, they were pulled by horses or oxen!

Combines

The first combine was utilised many, many years ago in 1838. As you can imagine; they have developed rapidly since then. In fact a lot of agricultural machinery nowadays boasts the same luxuries you get with cars, such as stereo systems for example. However, back in the day these combines were actually horse drawn! After all, the combustion engine hadn’t been invented back then. So, what is a combine used for? Essentially this machine will cut and thresh grain. It can also be used to separate the edible grain from the stem and hull.

Cultivators

From one C to another; the next piece of equipment is the cultivator. This is utilised in order to prepare the soil for planting. How does it do so? Well, it simply cuts grooves into the soil. The seeds will then of course be planted in these grooves. Similarly to combines, the very first cultivators were drawn by horses. Prior to this everything had to be done by hand. You can imagine how time consuming this would have been!

Tractors

This list would not be complete without a mention of the gas oil tractor we all love today. This is the piece of farm machinery we have all come to commonly associate with the industry. It is arguably the most useful and versatile piece of machinery available to farmers today. It can provide farmers with aid on anything from transporting harvest to pulling equipment and thus it accomplishes many different tasks. The first mass product tractor came to light in 1916. Back then they had metal wheels and were connected by metal tracks. They also ran on kerosene. However, it didn’t take long for the metal to be ditched. In 1932 rubber replaced the metal wheel.

These four pieces of machinery are undoubtedly four of the most popular in terms of agricultural utilisation today. They have allowed farms to speed up their workload dramatically, in turn allowing them to be more efficient and reap a much higher profit level too.

Mark Asquith

That British podcast guy, Mark is co-founder of Captivate.fm, the world's only growth-oriented podcast host. A Harvard, TEDx, Podcast Movement and Podfest speaker (amongst many more!), he's a wildly approachable Brit and Star Wars/DC Comics geek.

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