THE EFFECT OF SOIL MOISTURE CONTENT ON THE ENERGY REQUIREMENT AND FUEL CONSUMPTION OF THE MACHINERY UNIT

The field experiment was conducted in one of college of agricultural fields – university of Baghdad – Abu ghraib for 2016 in a silty clay loam soil study power and fuel consumption requirement s , two types of tractors and three types of plows were used as a machinery unit , this study design by a spilt plot under randomize complete block design with three replicates and tasted by the average less significant  different with level of probability ( 0.05 ) , the main factor was use two level of soil moisture content ( 18 – 20 % ) and ( 14 – 16 % ) , the secondary factor was use three type of plow ( moldboard , chisel and sweep ) , The research includes the study of fuel consumption ( L/hr ) , specific fuel consumption ( L/hr.hp ) , drawbar pull ( kn ) and specific energy ( hp/m³ ) .

The results showed that the soil moisture content ( 14 – 16 % ) having less fuel consumption ( 8.36 L/hr ) and less specific fuel consumption ( 0.221 L/hr.hp ) and less drawbar pull ( 8.99 kn ) and less specific energy ( 1.027 hp/m³ ) , the sweep plow having a less fuel consumption ( 8.75 L/hr ) and less specific fuel consumption ( 0.233 L/hr.hp ) and less drawbar pull ( 9.07 kn ) and less specific energy ( 0.887 hp/m³ ) , the interaction between the soil moisture content ( 14 – 16 % ) and sweep plow having a less fuel consumption ( 7.11 L/hr ) and less specific fuel consumption ( 0.186 L/hr.hp ) and less drawbar pull ( 7.9 kn ) and less specific energy ( 0.844 hp/m³ ) .