A cultivator is an agricultural equipment used for secondary tillage. One sense of the name refers to frames with "teeth" (also called "shanks") that pierce the soil as they are dragged through it linearly. Another sense refers to machines that use rotary motion of disks or teeth to accomplish a similar result.

Cultivators stir and pulverize the soil, either before planting or after the crop has begun growing.

Cultivators of the toothed type are often similar in form to chisel plows, but their goals are different. Cultivator teeth work near the surface, usually for weed control, whereas chisel plow shanks work deep beneath the surface, breaking up hardpan. Consequently, cultivating also takes much less power per shank than does chisel plowing.

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