[Farm Machinery of the Week] Saves up to 25% on fertilizer and captures ammonia… Korea’s only ‘tractor plow’

“Deep fertilization,” which buries fertilizer deep in the soil, has been regarded as an effective method for preventing the loss of nitrogen fertilizer, reducing carbon emissions, increasing fertilizer-use efficiency, and improving crop productivity. However, because there had been no suitable agricultural machine capable of deep tillage while simultaneously injecting fertilizer, wider on-site adoption had faced some difficulties. A dedicated machine that solved this long-standing problem has finally been recognized as a new technology.

The Rural Development Administration (Administrator Lee Seung-don) announced that on Aug. 7 it designated and publicly notified the “agricultural tractor plow,” a deep-fertilization device, as a new-technology agricultural machine. This machine is a low-carbon innovative agricultural machine that directly applies fertilizer into the soil at a depth of 25 to 30 cm while a tractor performs tillage. In the final comprehensive review for new-technology agricultural machinery, it was evaluated as having “no similar products at all domestically or overseas, and extremely high technological and economic value in core technologies such as its fertilizer-saving mechanism,” officially proving its originality.

Onion yields up 52% and garlic 24%… nitrogen fertilizer use cut by up to 25%
The effects of deep fertilization have already been verified. At the “Garlic and Onion Deep Fertilization Demonstration Project Briefing” held by the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences under the Rural Development Administration on March 25 in Muan, South Jeolla Province, yields increased by 52% for onions and 24% for garlic when deep-fertilization technology was applied. In addition, nitrogen fertilizer use was reduced by 22 to 25%, to a level that allowed one topdressing application to be omitted.

In addition, in a comparison of paddy-water concentrations on a 3.2-hectare rice field in Gimje, North Jeolla Province, a major rice-producing area, between a paddy where basal fertilizer was applied 25 to 30 cm deep in the soil through deep fertilization and a paddy fertilized by side-dressing, total nitrogen (the total amount of nitrogen present in the water) and total phosphorus in the deeply fertilized paddy water were found to be reduced by 29% and 44%, respectively, compared with the control group.
 

Digging the ground while injecting fertilizer… blocks ammonia and cuts labor by up to 50%
However, because the work of digging deeply and spreading fertilizer had to be carried out separately, farms suffering from labor shortages had no choice but to prefer conventional farming methods. This is why deep fertilization failed to spread. But with the Rural Development Administration developing technology that can perform both tasks simultaneously and having it designated as a new technology, the spread of deep fertilization is expected to gain momentum.

Hong Seong-chang, a researcher in the Climate Change Response Division of the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences under the Rural Development Administration who led the technology’s development, explained, “Until now, there had been no suitable means of applying fertilizer while digging the ground,” adding, “In the course of research on reducing ammonia to respond to fine dust, we found the answer: ammonia disappears when fertilizer is placed underground.” He continued, “This technology prevents nitrogen components from coming into contact with the atmosphere, reducing ammonia gas generation to virtually zero in paddies and blocking more than 70% in fields,” and added, “Because nutrient persistence increases, yields of rice and paddy-field soybeans rise, and the number of topdressing applications is reduced, cutting labor by 30 to 50%.”
 

Nationwide adoption gains momentum through preferential government support… technology transferred to five companies
The agricultural tractor plow is used by attaching it to a tractor, and its height and fertilizer injection rate can be adjusted so that it maintains a constant depth even on uneven farmland. As it has been designated as a new technology, it is expected to be rapidly distributed to farms nationwide on the basis of preferential treatment under the Agricultural Mechanization Promotion Act, including priority support in government support projects and priority purchasing by public institutions.

Researcher Hong Seong-chang said, “Because only a fertilizer injection device needs to be attached to a tractor, the burden on farmers is not large,” adding, “We have transferred the technology to five companies to expand dissemination of this technology and agricultural machine.”