Hoe (tool) in the context of "Crop residue"

Tillage is the agricultural preparation of soil by mechanical agitation of various types, such as digging, stirring, and overturning. Examples of human-powered tilling methods using hand tools include shoveling, picking, mattock work, hoeing, and raking. Examples of draft-animal-powered or mechanized work include ploughing (overturning with moldboards or chiseling with chisel shanks), rototilling, rolling with cultipackers or other rollers, harrowing, and cultivating with cultivator shanks (teeth).

Tillage that is deeper and more thorough is classified as primary, and tillage that is shallower and sometimes more selective of location is secondary. Primary tillage such as ploughing tends to produce a rough surface finish, whereas secondary tillage tends to produce a smoother surface finish, such as that required to make a good seedbed for many crops. Harrowing and rototilling often combine primary and secondary tillage into one operation.

Mechanised agriculture or agricultural mechanisation is the use of machinery and equipment, ranging from simple and basic hand tools to more sophisticated, motorised equipment and machinery, to perform agricultural operations. In modern times, powered machinery has replaced many farm task formerly carried out by manual labour or by working animals such as oxen, horses and mules.

The entire history of agriculture contains many examples of the use of tools, such as the hoe and the plough. The ongoing integration of machines since the Industrial Revolution has allowed farming to become much less labour-intensive.

China has been the source of many innovations, scientific discoveries and inventions. Below is an alphabetical list of inventions and discoveries made by Neolithic cultures of China and those of its prehistorical early Bronze Age before the palatial civilization of the Shang dynasty (c. 1650 – c. 1050 BC). These include the Bronze Age Erlitou culture and the semi-legendary Xia dynasty that, unlike the Shang, is not yet confirmed to have existed with evidence of contemporary texts.

The contemporaneous Peiligang and Pengtoushan cultures represent the oldest Neolithic cultures of China and were formed around 7000 BC. Some of the first inventions of Neolithic China include semilunar and rectangular stone knives, stone hoes and spades, the cultivation of millet and the soybean, the refinement of sericulture, rice cultivation, the creation of pottery with cord-mat-basket designs, the creation of pottery vessels and pottery steamers and the development of ceremonial vessels and scapulimancy for purposes of divination. The British sinologist Francesca Bray argues that the domestication of the ox and buffalo during the Longshan culture (c. 3000 – c. 2000 BC) period, the absence of Longshan-era irrigation or high-yield crops, full evidence of Longshan cultivation of dry-land cereal crops which gave high yields "only when the soil was carefully cultivated," suggest that the plow was known at least by the Longshan culture period and explains the high agricultural production yields which allowed the rise of Chinese civilization during the Shang dynasty. Later inventions such as the multiple-tube seed drill and the heavy moldboard iron plow enabled China to sustain a much larger population through greater improvements in agricultural output.

Shennong (Chinese: 神農; pinyin: Shénnóng), variously translated as "Divine Farmer" or "Divine Husbandman", born Jiang Shinian (姜石年), was a mythological Chinese ruler known as the first Yan Emperor who has become a deity in Chinese folk religion. He is venerated as a culture hero in China.

Shennong has at times been counted amongst the Three Sovereigns (also known as "Three Kings" or "Three Patrons"), a group of ancient deities or deified kings of prehistoric China. Shennong has been thought to have taught the ancient Chinese not only their practices of agriculture, but also the use of herbal medicine. Shennong was credited with various inventions: these include the hoe, plow (both leisi (耒耜) style and the plowshare), axe, digging wells, agricultural irrigation, preserving stored seeds by using boiled horse urine (to ward off the borers), trade, commerce, money, the weekly farmers market, the Chinese calendar (especially the division into the 24 jieqi or solar terms). He is also attributed to have refined the therapeutic understanding of taking pulse measurements, acupuncture, and moxibustion, as well as having instituted the harvest thanksgiving ceremony (zhaji (蜡祭) sacrificial rite, later known as the laji (腊祭) rite).

An adze (/ædz/) or adz is an ancient and versatile cutting tool similar to an axe but with the cutting edge perpendicular to the handle rather than parallel. Adzes have been used since the Stone Age. They are used for smoothing or carving wood in hand woodworking, and as a hoe for agriculture and horticulture. Two basic forms of an adze are the hand adze (short hoe)—a short-handled tool swung with one hand—and the foot adze (hoe)—a long-handled tool capable of powerful swings using both hands, the cutting edge usually striking at foot or shin level. A similar tool is called a mattock, which differs by having two blades, one perpendicular to the handle and one parallel.

Weed control is a type of pest control, which attempts to stop or reduce growth of weeds, especially noxious weeds, with the aim of reducing their competition with desired flora and fauna including domesticated plants and livestock, and in natural settings preventing non native species competing with native species.

Weed control is important in agriculture. Methods include hand cultivation with hoes, powered cultivation with cultivators, smothering with mulch, lethal wilting with high heat, burning, and chemical control with herbicides (weed killers).

Hilling, earthing up or ridging is the technique in agriculture and horticulture of heaping soil up around the base of a plant. It can be done by hand (usually using a hoe), or with powered machinery, typically a tractor attachment.

Hilling buries the normally above-ground part of the plant, promoting desired growth. This may encourage the development of additional tubers (as with potatoes), force the plant to grow longer stems (leeks), or for some crops (chicory, leeks, asparagus etc.) this blanching technique keeps the stems or shoots pale and tender, or influences their taste.