"The moldboard plow... buries almost all the old crop stubble, straw, and residue..."
Rick Kubik, farm safety expert
The simple moldboard plow was one of the most significant developments in history, but the name of its inventor is lost in time.
When humans first began tilling their fields, they would simply drag a stick or a hoe through the soil. The resulting furrows were perfect for planting seeds for cultivation. Once humans had domesticated the ox, around 7000 B.C.E., they were able to harness its pulling power to increase plowing efficiency. The oxen pulled a hoe contained by a wooden frame.
But the real breakthrough occurred in the third century B.C.E. when the Chinese designed the kuan, or moldboard plow. This consisted of a hitch, to attach it
to an animal, and an asymmetric moldboard blade, which cut through the earth horizontally, with the added benefit of slicing through the roots of weeds. Once the earth had been cut horizontally, the forward motion of the curved plowshare pushed the soil against the blade, which turned the soil upside down before depositing it back on the ground, to the side of the new furrow. This aerated the soil, but it was the inverting of the earth that brought new advantages. Any surviving weeds were buried by the inverted earth and, especially in dry soil, nutrients and moisture were brought back to the surface. Now much larger areas could be farmed more efficiently.
