The wear of the Ghanaian hand hoe was investigated by varying a number of parameters. The hoes were tested in a rotating laboratory soil bin using loamy soil and soils with various percentages of gravel content. It was found that the wear, in terms of weight and dimensional loss of hoe, increased with an increase in soil moisture content, operation speed, hoe operation angle and time of operation. Relations of the form: ψ=Ae{sup}(αt)+β and ψ= kt{sup}n were found to exist between wear and operation time. Wear variation with soil moisture content was linear, while the variation with operation speed and hoe operation angle were non-linear. The rate of wear was maximum at 67.5 hours operation in all cases. Wear rate increased with increasing gravel aggregate up to 22 gravel after which the wear rate was practically constant with increasing gravel aggregate.
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