Rotary Tillage

(rototilling), the loosening and inverting of soil to a depth of 20–25 cm with a rotary plow. The soil is broken into pieces by blades or teeth attached to the disks of a rotating drum; it strikes the housing fenders and is broken into small pieces. The result is an even, well-loosened surface. Rotary tillage is used to dress the slice on drained bogs and marshy lands, to bring peat bogs under cultivation, and to improve sod lands in meadows and pastures, as well as in forestry to prepare soil for forest crops, and in vegetable and flower growing to cultivate the soil in hothouses, hotbeds, plots adjacent to hotbeds, and nurseries. The effectiveness of rotary tillage on old plowed land is under study. Rotary tillage is one of the operations involved in extracting peat by the surface-milling method.