In this study a v-wheel packer with some special features was designed, fabricated and attached to a tractor mounted moldboard plow and its performance as a reduced tillage implement conducting primary and secondary tillage operations in one pass was investigated. The design of the hitching linkage connecting the packer to the moldboard frame was such that the packer wheels were lifted up with their transport wheels contacting soil surface as the plow bottoms were lifted up for transportion. As the plow was lowered to be engaged with soil, the transport wheels were lifted up and the packer wheels were re-engaged with soil. The effects of the packer attachment at two conditions of weight ballast (150 and 300 kg) on total draft force, drawbar power requirement, fuel consumption, clod mean weight diameter (MWD), soil cone index and surface profile were investigated and compared with those of the conventional tillage using moldboard plow followed by a tandem disk in separate tractor passes at three soil moisture content ranges (13-15, 15-17 and 17-19 % d.b.)The results indicated that the mean values of draft force, drawbar power requirement, fuel consumption and clod MWD of the moldboard plow-packer combination were significantly smaller than those of conventional tillage using moldboard plow and tandem disk separately. Also, the soil surface profile generated by the moldboard-packer combination was significantly smoother than the one left behind moldboard plow followed by one pass of tandem disk. In this study, the most suitable soil moisture content for performing seedbed preparation using moldboard plow-packer combination on a sandy clay loam soil with lower plastic limit of 22.3% was determined at 15-17% d.b.
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