Flail Mower Orchard Flail Mowers

[DocHeb]

Anybody have any experience with an "orchard" flail mower? The advertisements say they can be used for grass and branches. These have massive forged hammers instead of "T" shaped blades, and some are rated for mulching 4" diameter branches! They are pricey, but they may replace several attatchments such as a mower, chipper and rotory brushhog. I was wondering if they really "do-it-all" well, or just do several things poorly.

See this site for an example:

<font color=blue>http://www.thestgeorgeco.com/catalogue/Farm_Forestry/Orchard/body_orchard.html</font color=blue>

 

[Keoke]

Doc, I have a Muratori model MT12 (63") flail mower, Italian made unit. It came with knives for cutters but I bought a set of "T'" hammers for it. The hammers seem to work equal well on grass and brush. The knives do a good job on grass, blackberries and small brush. The hammers seem to work as well on grass as the knives do. Bottom line, given the choice between knives and hammers go with the hammers for dual use with seemingly no downside. On my machine one hammer replaces two knives. There are a total of 24 hammers or 48 knives. Don't know about hammering that 4 inch stuff, sounds a little heavy for me.
Muratori has a web site but I can"t seem to find it at the moment.
Lots of luck,
george

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I just took delivery of a sovema VFI2180 orchard flail mower with a hydraulic side shift. We plan on using to keep the grass down in the orchard and to shred up the prunings as well.

 

[DocHeb]

Have you used your new orchard flail mower yet? I'd be interested in how it works under different conditions.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

It has been very dry here so the grass is not very lush. We ran it over 40 acres of orchard and the quality of the cut is very good. There was some small branches that were mulched up but nothing over 1/4". So far so good.