Two-wheel tractor

Two-wheel tractor or walking tractor French: motoculteur German: Einachsschlepper oder Bodenfräse are generic terms understood in the USA and in parts of Europe to represent a single-axle tractor, which is a tractor with one axle, self-powered and self-propelled, which can pull and power various farm implements such as a trailer, cultivator or harrow, a plough, or various seeders and harvesters. The operator usually walks behind it or rides the implement being towed. Similar terms are mistakenly applied to the household rotary tiller or power tiller; although these may be wheeled and/or self-propelled, they are not tailored for towing implements. A two-wheeled tractor specializes in pulling any of numerous types of implements, whereas rotary tillers specialize in soil tillage with their dedicated digging tools. This article concerns two-wheeled tractors as distinguished from such tillers.

Research has identified a number of terms used to identify two-wheel tractors, including "walk-behind tractor; iron-ox; walking tractor; mechanical ox; ox-machine; pedestrian tractor; hand tractor; single-axle tractor; and in Asia, tok-tok".

There is also a fair bit of confusion in nomenclature regarding machines of similar size/configuration, that operate a single implement (such as power tillers; rear-tine tillers; rotary hoes; rotary ploughs; rotary tillers; Rotavators; etc.) The important distinction between a two-wheel tractor and any of these machines is that the two-wheel tractor is a single-axle, walk-behind machine designed to operate multiple interchangeable implements, where machines in the categories above typically only operate one implement (such as a tiller), which implement is often integral to the machine (rather than being removable).

"Power tiller" can be understood as a garden tiller/rototiller of the small (3–7 hp or 2.2–5.2 kW) petrol/gasoline/electric powered, hobby gardener variety; they are often sold as a rotary tiller, though the technical agricultural use of that term refers solely to an attachment to a larger tractor. Alternatively, the terms "power tiller" or "rotary tiller" are always understood in Asia and elsewhere to be rubber- or iron-wheeled, self-propelled machines of 5–18 hp (3.7–13.4 kW) and usually powered by heavy-duty single-cylinder diesel engines (many Asian countries historically have had a high luxury tax on petrol/gasoline). Adding to the nomenclature confusion, agricultural engineers like to classify them as single-axle tractors. For clarity, the rest of this article refers to the self-propelled, single-axle, multi-attachment tractive machines as two-wheel tractors.

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