The efficiency of a tractor to draft development depends on the interaction among the wheeled and the soil where it moves and it involves a complex group of factors, such as: characteristic of the tire, slip, the tractor weight transfer, soil type, water texture and soil compactation, type of soil covering, among others. The aim of this work was to evaluate the acting of an agricultural tractor in an area covered with different types of plants. It was used five types of soil covering (oat, Vicia sativa, turnip, oat and V. sativa together and without cover). A load cell, pulse sensor, flow meters and a system of data acquisition, was used. The slip was larger where the mass of dry matter was larger, even so it didn't influence in the potency requested in the drawbar and in the consumption of fuel. The best traction efficiency was obtained in the portions without covering. The traction coefficient was larger in the treatments with covering of oat, Vicia sativa and turnip, when compared with the area without covering. It is ended that the covering of the soil interferes in the capacity of the tractor in developing effort for pull machines and the covering type can intervene in the slip and tractor efficiency.
tractor efficiency; power; slip
