Development of Computer Software for Determination of Optimum Tractor Power and Machinery Sizes

Choice and usage of optimum tractor power and agricultural machinery size is important to decrease machinery cost and complete agricultural operations in a reasonable time.Also, the usage of improper size machinery increases the production costs in the farms.Agricultural operations and machinery usage during cultivation season are affected by many factors such as crop pattern, economic input and output, properties of soil and crop, and climate.Under these circumstances, determination of optimum tractor power and machinery size is a tedious and complex procedure that requires many calculations and computational work.In this study, a computer software was developed to determine optimum size of mechanization vehicles used in farms.In this program, the method named as "the least cost method" was employed.Programming language of the software was Visual Basic.NET.Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database was used for the storage of processing parameters and results.The program developed in this study was applied to the representative farm size and crops such as wheat, corn, and cotton.