I'm starting a vegetable market farm this year, and in my original plan, I'd planned 30" beds with a walk behind tractor, Berta rotary plow, power harrow, and Berta flail mower. Then I called EarthTools. I said I'd be cultivating 2 acres. They said to look into 4 wheeled tractors, that the 2-wheelers would take too much time and be pretty hard on the body after all that tilling. So I redesigned everything for 48" beds and started researching tractors. I'm about to make a bunch of calls to craigslist ads, but am having second thoughts.
First of all, the cost will ultimately work out to be the same, because I'm looking at tractors no more than $4000, and I'd be using a cheap chisel plow. A barn is also available for storage of large equipment. For context, the property I'm leasing as a whole is 33 acres, most of which is pasture and forest. If the vegetable operation needs to expand, there is an additional field with about 3 acres of usable land, though currently growing some of the biggest autumn olives I've ever seen. For now that field will be used as pasture, along with a couple other pastures. The stocking rate will be pretty low the first couple years until they start churning out more babies, and I plan on getting Jim Gerrish's book "Kick the Hay Habit" so that I'm not so reliant on haymaking.
Here are some reservations I have about 4 wheel tractors:
- I am not a mechanic. Yes I can change oil and follow maintenance instructions, but whenever I've tried to "fix" things on my truck, I usually end up extremely frustrated and messing up.
- The soil I'm working with is gorgeous alluvial loam, and there's one spot with tractor (or truck?) ruts that are worryingly deep, showing how much compaction can happen. The soil overall is not compacted at all, and I want to keep it that way as much as possible. (This field was worked a few years back, but has otherwise lain fallow essentially for decades)
- Land would not be used as efficiently as it could be. Tractors need a wide turning radius at the end of each bed. On the flipside, I'm skeptical of the current trend towards super-intensive plant spacing. Root competition is a problem with intensive spacing, fixed only by running the irrigation pump daily (which means fuel $ used) and copious amounts of expensive compost and fertilizer. OTOH, weeds may be more of a problem with wider spacings. I'm trying to mitigate weeds by using stale seedbed techniques and (once the weed seedbank is reduced) no till cover crop mulch left on top of the soil. Probably landscape fabric will be used as well.
Here are some reservations I have about 2 wheel tractors:
- My time will not be used efficiently. Because I live in a "foodie" area that is already well-served by vegetable farms, I have to be a marketing guru in order to survive, so most of my time has to be spent marketing and selling, not slowly walking behind a tractor. I guess this is my main concern - so for those of you who have used both kinds of tractors, what difference do you see in time? If you have both kinds of tractors, what jobs do you assign to your BCS/Grillo vs. the 4-wheeler?
- Because I'm also responsible for maintaining fence lines all around the whole property, a bush hog would be more appropriate. And if the livestock can't eat all the pasture, whatever's left over will need to be mown/bushhogged once or twice a year. All the pastures together are about 13 acres (according to GIS, I haven't measured them on the ground yet). This could be hired out if necessary, but I don't know how much that would cost.
Thank you for any advice you may have, and I'll be sure to let you know what I end up doing.
First of all, the cost will ultimately work out to be the same, because I'm looking at tractors no more than $4000, and I'd be using a cheap chisel plow. A barn is also available for storage of large equipment. For context, the property I'm leasing as a whole is 33 acres, most of which is pasture and forest. If the vegetable operation needs to expand, there is an additional field with about 3 acres of usable land, though currently growing some of the biggest autumn olives I've ever seen. For now that field will be used as pasture, along with a couple other pastures. The stocking rate will be pretty low the first couple years until they start churning out more babies, and I plan on getting Jim Gerrish's book "Kick the Hay Habit" so that I'm not so reliant on haymaking.
Here are some reservations I have about 4 wheel tractors:
- I am not a mechanic. Yes I can change oil and follow maintenance instructions, but whenever I've tried to "fix" things on my truck, I usually end up extremely frustrated and messing up.
- The soil I'm working with is gorgeous alluvial loam, and there's one spot with tractor (or truck?) ruts that are worryingly deep, showing how much compaction can happen. The soil overall is not compacted at all, and I want to keep it that way as much as possible. (This field was worked a few years back, but has otherwise lain fallow essentially for decades)
- Land would not be used as efficiently as it could be. Tractors need a wide turning radius at the end of each bed. On the flipside, I'm skeptical of the current trend towards super-intensive plant spacing. Root competition is a problem with intensive spacing, fixed only by running the irrigation pump daily (which means fuel $ used) and copious amounts of expensive compost and fertilizer. OTOH, weeds may be more of a problem with wider spacings. I'm trying to mitigate weeds by using stale seedbed techniques and (once the weed seedbank is reduced) no till cover crop mulch left on top of the soil. Probably landscape fabric will be used as well.
Here are some reservations I have about 2 wheel tractors:
- My time will not be used efficiently. Because I live in a "foodie" area that is already well-served by vegetable farms, I have to be a marketing guru in order to survive, so most of my time has to be spent marketing and selling, not slowly walking behind a tractor. I guess this is my main concern - so for those of you who have used both kinds of tractors, what difference do you see in time? If you have both kinds of tractors, what jobs do you assign to your BCS/Grillo vs. the 4-wheeler?
- Because I'm also responsible for maintaining fence lines all around the whole property, a bush hog would be more appropriate. And if the livestock can't eat all the pasture, whatever's left over will need to be mown/bushhogged once or twice a year. All the pastures together are about 13 acres (according to GIS, I haven't measured them on the ground yet). This could be hired out if necessary, but I don't know how much that would cost.
Thank you for any advice you may have, and I'll be sure to let you know what I end up doing.