Land Roller

Land Roller

 

a farm implement for leveling out and compacting the soil surface layers and for breaking up and loosening soil blocks, clods, and crusts. Land rollers may be drawn by a tractor or mounted on one. The rollers are divided by type of working surfaces into flat, ring, flat-ribbed, cam, ring-toothed, and combined. The effect of the land roller on the soil depends on its weight, outside diameter, and shape of the working surface. The heavier the land roller, the more deeply it compacts the soil. The weight of some land rollers can be varied by using ballast boxes that can be attached to the roller’s frame or by filling specially hollowed working parts with water.

The choice of the type of land roller depends on the nature of the work and on soil conditions. A flat, water-filled roller is used for rolling peat boggy soils after plowing or disking. The large diameter of the drums (1.25 m) allows this implement to roll over the greatly swollen cloddy peat soils. A flat, water-filled roller is also used for the rolling of plowed lands and of fields planted with winter and spring crops, as well as for the rolling of fertilizer and manure before it is plowed under. Beet plantings are rolled with flat-ribbed water-filled rollers and ring-toothed rollers. A special feature of the flat-ribbed roller is the removable ribbed sleeve; this feature allows use of the roller both in presow-ing and postsowing rolling. The ring-toothed rollers can be used in the form of one, two, or more sections, depending on the power of the tractor used. The working parts of the sections on the rollers are rings with rims (tapered rings) and tined rings. The rollers are effective in rolling the soil before and after sowing, and they separate the clods and blocks after plowing.

Ring-lug rollers are used for packing the lower layers, loosening the surface soil layer, leveling the surface, and breaking up crusts and blocks after plowing.The sections of the roller consist of tined disks that turn freely on an axle. Combined rollers intensively loosen the surface soil layer and pack the lower one. They are used for breaking up clods before sowing, for packing planted rows with the simultaneous loosening of the surface layer, and for breaking up crusts and harrowing.