Effects Of Mechanical Operations On Soil And Production Traits Of Dryland Farming Alfalfa

Alfalfa industry is the dominant industry in the southern mountain area of Ningxia. It has played a very important role in improving the ecological environment and promoting the development of animal husbandry and raising the people’s living standard. Over the years, Due to economic conditions and demand constraints,alfalfa in mountainous area of Southern Ningxia mostly on slope that used mechanic repaired. The management is extensive and the level of technology is low.The slope of mechanic repaired don’t have suitable machinery.Harvesting and processing mechanization of alfalfa is low, mainly relies on manual cutting, it need a lot of labor. In order to change the situation of Ningxia southern mountain alfalfa ’s planting extensive management and low technical level and the level of mechanization, to ensure of alfalfa industry have a healthy development, we must speed up the machinery to promote the generalize of machine and supporting technology research work.The test mainly studies the effects of mechanical operations on soil and production traits of dryland-farming alfalfa. Alfalfa planted in Jiatang Xiang County as the research object,we use the leveling soil machine and the self-propelled rotary cutting flattening machine and baler to complete this experiment.The main conclusions go as following:1.The surface temperature, humidity, and respiration rate of level land processed soil were higher than that of the level land processing, and the temperature of 20-40 cm deepen soil was higher than that processing level land, but the humidity was lower than no level land processing.2.After the ball-grader processed the level land, the soil’s bulk density is ranging in reasonable scope from 1.1 to 1.4. The processing level land was having little effect on the physical and chemical properties of soil. But the capacity of the soil bulk density porosity and the maximum water holding has a downward trend. Therefore, the land can not be processed in too frequent way.3.The level land processing can promote the growth of alfalfa. Alfalfa has witnessed its better quality whether in the plant height, regeneration ability or production.4.The level land processing has a obvious effect on preventing and killing off the type and quantity of the weed, which is better than no level land processing5. In the early flowering period of alfalfa during the harvest, yield and quality are relatively higher than the others.6.The suitable alfalfa cutting height was four centimeter.7.There were significant differences in drying time between the crushed treatment and non crushed treatment. crushed treatment can shorten 8 hours, also can reduce of alfalfa leaf loss rate after mechanical crushing treatment. Using machines crushed alfalfa can save more nutrients.8.Mechanical efficiency is 4 times higher than manual harvesting and the work efficiency per hour is 0.4-0.53 hectare.