That looks interesting but wow that would take so much energy to deep till with a machine like that! That is a trenching machine that they use to bury wires and pipes. I imagine it does well as a tiller but would be very slow and on a Canadian scale, I don't think it would work. Perhaps on a small farm in Africa, it would work. The weather is much better for farming in Africa! Every acre is so much more productive with all that warmth and if trenching makes for better water retention, then yields would certainly go up!
Hi @tomkelly8827, you're right, it does take more energy than conventional tilling, which is generally only done to around 20 cm depth, and/or subsoiling, but it is a very efficient way to deep till down to 40 cm using light equipment. As you’ve observed, it would be very slow and labour-intensive compared to a European/Canadian system, but this device isn’t designed to replace expensive large-scale equipment, but instead to replace manual labour with affordably sized equipment that runs from renewable energies. In these areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, without this deep digging there is virtually no water retention in the compacted soils, so the potential productivity that you’ve highlighted cannot be taken advantage of. So, the technique may be energy inefficient per hectare compared to large Canadian equipment, but it is very energy efficient per hectare compared to mattocks and pickaxes, especially for digging at these deep depths.
That looks interesting but wow that would take so much energy to deep till with a machine like that! That is a trenching machine that they use to bury wires and pipes. I imagine it does well as a tiller but would be very slow and on a Canadian scale, I don't think it would work. Perhaps on a small farm in Africa, it would work. The weather is much better for farming in Africa! Every acre is so much more productive with all that warmth and if trenching makes for better water retention, then yields would certainly go up!
Hi @tomkelly8827, you're right, it does take more energy than conventional tilling, which is generally only done to around 20 cm depth, and/or subsoiling, but it is a very efficient way to deep till down to 40 cm using light equipment. As you’ve observed, it would be very slow and labour-intensive compared to a European/Canadian system, but this device isn’t designed to replace expensive large-scale equipment, but instead to replace manual labour with affordably sized equipment that runs from renewable energies. In these areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, without this deep digging there is virtually no water retention in the compacted soils, so the potential productivity that you’ve highlighted cannot be taken advantage of. So, the technique may be energy inefficient per hectare compared to large Canadian equipment, but it is very energy efficient per hectare compared to mattocks and pickaxes, especially for digging at these deep depths.
The subtitles are too fast.