Lawn mower for Grillo G110 and other mower/rotary plow questions

   / Lawn mower for Grillo G110 and other mower/rotary plow questions #1  

cota348

New member
Joined
Mar 2, 2017
Messages
1
Location
Mines
Tractor
Grillo
Hello everyone. This is my first post here where I've already found lots of helpful information.

I will be buying a Grillo G110 (with 5x12 wheels) and some accessories. I have 1.5 acres, where around 1/2 an acre will be used to grow vegetables and the rest (1 acre) will be a garden with lawns that would need to be continuously mowed.

I have seen at Earthtools that the BCS lawn mowing implements are not listed for the Grillo G110. I believe having a mower with bagging would really be very helpful, so I have a few questions.

Can the BCS mowers be adapted to the Grillo G110?

Are there other lawn mowers with bagger for the Grillo?

If leaving bagging aside, are there other brands different from Zenon that I should look at?

How good are other kinds of mowers (sickle bar, brush or flail) for lawn mowing purposes? Does any of these give good lawn mowing results? If buying a mower without bag, I have thought of buying the flail mower if it could give good results with lawn.

For beds and soil preparation I will probably get the rotary plow. While the power harrow seems pretty nice, i believe for general soil preparation a rotary plow would make more sense, and perhaps too because i don't think I will be seeding directly on the beds. But the harrow does make very nice beds with good soil structure!

I would really appreciate your comments on this!
Seb
 
   / Lawn mower for Grillo G110 and other mower/rotary plow questions #2  
Hi Seb, I have a diesel G110 and at my peak mow about 6 acres with it. I have both the 71" dual action cutter bar and the Berta 34" flail mower.

If I could only have one implement, it would be the flail mower. It's an excellent all-around tool that does a good job at mowing, mulching, and clearing. It's probably not the best at any of those as a more single-purpose implement, but I've been impressed with everything I've thrown at it. Most of the acreage needed to be reclaimed from weeds and general over growth so I wanted the flail to chop down the tall weeds and brush where the grass used to be, and serve as light-duty clearing from wooded areas.

Flail Pros:

* anything it can bend to the ground it'll destroy
* finer materials mulch down to nothing, heavier stuff is pretty well chopped up
* relatively safe for the operator and forgiving on equipment when discovering rocks and objects in overgrowth. Anything that does get kicked out tends to roll along the ground rather than being thrown in the air
* does a good job mowing, leaves nice stripes too
* very reliable, even after submerging in water
* different types of flails available, easily swapped

Flail Cons:

* really ruins your day if you run over a metal cable or even woody vines that get wound up around the flail drums
* less flexible with engine speed since you need the RPMs up to keep the flails working at the proper speed. Generally 2nd gear at high RPM for heavier grass/material. I use 1st at full throttle for the very thick grass, and generally aim for 3rd gear at lower RPM for medium or thin stuff.
* lots of shifting to optimize your time. 2nd gear mowing gets very boring
* not so great over rough terrain - tends to scalp or go airborne when going up or down, and requires heavy counter-breaking if going across a hill
* heavy and sticks way out from the PTO shaft; generally hard to maneuver. Works well if you can mow in a Zamboni pattern or have lots of room to swing around, but if you have to do lots of tight U-turns it's time consuming, as it requires lots of shifting

And since I have so much area, I wanted the sickle mower for fast maintenance mowing of cleared land, where I know there are no obstacle or hidden surprises. It does an OK job, but I'd say I'm generally disappointed. It's not bad per-se, it's just not as impressive as the flail mower (for MOWING). I beat the crap out of my flail mower and work it hard, and the only thing I've ever done is the regular maintenance checks (grease, and tighten belts) and once replaced the flails after wearing out both sides. I don't work the sickle mower hard but I've broken the retaining fingers and some of the teeth. But, it is fast!


Sickle Pros:

* very short from the PTO and easily counter balanced - easy to maneuver (though still requires a good turning radius due to the width)
* requires very low engine RPM, can run all day on a tank of diesel
* height of the grass or material doesn't matter - good for less frequent clearing of weeds or medium-tall grass (and naturally, ideal for haying)
* handles water, either dew, rain, or puddles without missing a beat

Sickle Cons:

* tends to push short (light) grass over and leaves a ragged cut, especially if you are going fast. Not good for weekly trimming (if that's your thing)
* not as fast as you'd estimate since it runs at low engine RPM. 3rd gear is a good walking pace though
* lots of vibrations hard on equipment (things rattle loose) and operator (padded gloves are nice)
* mowing tall weeds is difficult if they are a mix of materials, as it tends to pull towards one side or the other requiring lower speed and lots of counter braking to keep straight
* not great over rough terrain, due to the width. If one side goes down, the other goes up (cuts through electric fence like butter)


If it were me and I had 1 acre to mow, I'd go with the flail. Mow it frequently enough and you don't need to worry about bagging, as it goes a good job mulching It's wide enough that you'll get the job done quickly, so even if you have to mow weekly during peak growing season it's not a huge amount of time (the sickle won't save you much time in your case. Only if you need to mower underneath lots of obstacles). Plus, you can use it at the end of the year on your garden to mulch up what's left over or add materials on top (horse manure) and chop them up a bit, and chopping up leaves. You can get different flails for different jobs too, so have a set for mowing, another for mulching, etc. I originally thought I would add a dedicated mower to my equipment but see no need for it anymore.

Hope that helps. I'm thinking of picking up the rotary plow this spring as well to do some first time soil work on some of the areas I've cleared. Next season I might go for a brush-hog style mower to really clear out some of my wooded area where I think the flail will struggle, or maybe that power harrow after all...
 
   / Lawn mower for Grillo G110 and other mower/rotary plow questions #3  
Great write up, thanks. Do you use the flat flail heads in stead of the y shape for lawn duties?
 
   / Lawn mower for Grillo G110 and other mower/rotary plow questions #4  
I have only used the stock Y-shaped flails thus far. I don't think my lawn is nice enough that I would see any improvement from an L-shaped flail (I'm assuming they produce a neater cut); the Y-flails do a great job for multipurpose use. That said, I am intending at some point to pick up some different styles, I'd really like something "heavier duty" for more brush-hog style work (and if it means I don't need to buy a dedicated implement, that's great), and to dethatch the lawn a bit with the scarification flails. I might get away with raising the cutting height and removing the discharge baffle, but I haven't played with that yet either. Honestly, in stock form I haven't felt much need to tinker, despite everything I've thrown at it.
 
   / Lawn mower for Grillo G110 and other mower/rotary plow questions #5  
I agree with JC - I have a G100 (gas) with flail and sickle. I tried the sickle first, and if I had a lot of open grassy acreage to mow then that is what I would use because it is so fast, but I have a relatively small lawn and mostly brushy uneven terrain woods that I am trying to get under control. I use the flail for brush control and I mow my lawn a couple times a year (my house is not visible from the private road and most of the lawn is behind the house so I let it grow).

The flail gives me a workout due to the weight, but it is the best for the job short of getting and using a forest mulcher on a skidsteer.

The flail will just cut the grass/brush and then it lays over while the flail will mulch it up.
 
   / Lawn mower for Grillo G110 and other mower/rotary plow questions #6  
I have only used the stock Y-shaped flails thus far. I don't think my lawn is nice enough that I would see any improvement from an L-shaped flail (I'm assuming they produce a neater cut); the Y-flails do a great job for multipurpose use. That said, I am intending at some point to pick up some different styles, I'd really like something "heavier duty" for more brush-hog style work (and if it means I don't need to buy a dedicated implement, that's great), and to dethatch the lawn a bit with the scarification flails. I might get away with raising the cutting height and removing the discharge baffle, but I haven't played with that yet either. Honestly, in stock form I haven't felt much need to tinker, despite everything I've thrown at it.

I raised the height up as much as possible and removed the baffle - I did not notice that much difference, but it did help.

BTW - I very much agree about avoiding things that can get wrapped around the flail:

flail.jpg

The previous owner of my property put down some ground cover in various places that I did not know was there (covered by weeds/grass) until I ran into it. It was a huge PIA to remove. I've also run into wire, pieces of metal, twine, etc., all of which were a PIA to remove too.
 
 
Top