Abstract:
Tillage has been identified as the single most expensive operation in crop production. Major
causes of this are the amount of energy expended to overcome adverse soil conditions. These
conditions exist because of wrong or inappropriate timing of the operation. Farmers in
Kafanchan area have been observed to spend a great deal of resources during tillage for lack of
knowledge the optimum time for the operation. The purpose of this work therefore, was to
identify the optimum time for tillage operation in Kafanchan. The Thomthwaifeand Mather
model was used to"compute the monthly potential evapotranspiration (PET) for Kafanchan
from data gathered remotely'in order-to'compute the climatic water balance. Results observed
revealed that the area had water deficit in'the months of January (0.00mm) to mid-May
(484.09mm) and October to December (0.00mm). Water surplus was observed from May and
ends mid-October. From the developed graphical model, it was concluded that the optimum
tillage time in Kafanchan should be from the second week of May and should stop in .the first
week of June. • S -/
