Optimization of parameters and operating modes of the needle harrow at flax growing

The technology of presowing tillage has played an important role when cultivating flax. For this reason, the justification of the parameters and regimes of needles working bodies is one of the tasks for the ensuring of high-quality soil cultivation. For implementation of that task the laboratory-field installation has been designed and manufactured. The harrow is a mounted equipment. Its working bodies are mounted on a frame, which rests on two support wheels. Disks of the harrows put on a shaft for the sets' forming. When the needles interact with the soil during the harrow moving they are turned into rotation. The harrow has a wrapping beam and can be considered as a combined soil-preparing aggregate. Laboratory and field studies were carried out to determine the design and technological parameters and modes of the needle harrow. In the process of work, indicators of the process quality were determined. As a result, the following were established: a rational range of working speeds of the needle harrow and a constructive parameter of the distance between neighboring needles, at which the highest quality of work was provided. Plant density charts obtained in the experimental plots after seeding of flax fiber by a selection seeder also confirm the conclusion made above about the advantages of a needle harrow for specified parameters.