Tractor Sizing What is the right size for 50 acres?

   / What is the right size for 50 acres? #1  

mikeydchicago34

New member
Joined
Jun 8, 2008
Messages
23
I just moved out to a farm i purchased, which is 50 acres. I have 20 acres hay pasture, 10 acres culitivated crops and 20 acres woodlands. I plan on someday baling my own hay but currently the neighbor does it for halves. What size tractor would best fit my place and would run baling implements. Thanks all.
 
   / What is the right size for 50 acres? #2  
mikeydchicago34 said:
I just moved out to a farm i purchased, which is 50 acres. I have 20 acres hay pasture, 10 acres culitivated crops and 20 acres woodlands. I plan on someday baling my own hay but currently the neighbor does it for halves. What size tractor would best fit my place and would run baling implements. Thanks all.


No expert here, but I think the biggest, baddest you can afford for a spread that size...
 
   / What is the right size for 50 acres? #4  
mikeydchicago34 said:
I have 20 acres hay pasture, 10 acres culitivated crops

The real question is what sized implements will you be using to do this work? Are you going to make square or round bales? Are you going to disk the 10 cultivated acres?

Depending on how big of your impliments will decide how much HP you need. In tractors, every HP is more money!!!

Another thing to consider is what dealers are close by and which ones are worth dealing with? If you have one dealer, then that's really where you need to go and see what they have and recomend. If there are several dealers, go to all of them and tell them what you have and want to do. They will put together a package of what they carry and can support. It does you no good to buy a brand of tractor or impliment that you cannot get parts for.

And most importantly, you need to have a budget. Is $30,000 grand going to do it for you, do you have move? less? Do you want to buy new and spend the money up front or do you want to buy used and save in buying, but spend time and money mainting and repairing what you have. If you are a good mechanic and have the time to work on equipment, buying used makes allot of sense. If not, it's extremely expensive to have it fixed for you.

There is no right tractor, perfect HP or ideal impliment. They all have advantages and disadvantages. We can help you figure those out, but first you need to narrow down the options.

Eddie
 
   / What is the right size for 50 acres? #5  
I personally would want a minimum of 50hp, if not more. Witht hat land you never know what you can get going.. plus some implements soak power.. like bailers. And even more so than power is weight...

I own 13.2 ac and have a 70 and 95hp tractor.. plus a few other antiques to play with. You can deffinately find jobs for a bigger tractor if you look hard! ;)

soundguy
 
   / What is the right size for 50 acres? #6  
If you can swing it, the John Deere 5603 is a pretty nice deal. :D That should be enough tractor to get you started.
 
   / What is the right size for 50 acres? #7  
You've determined what you want to do within the next 5+ years. What is the PTO HP requirment for the largest driven implement. What is the HP rating for the largest drawn implement. What is your comfort level (do I *need* a cab). Then like the others have said look around and you should be able to size your tractor needs.

good luck.
 
   / What is the right size for 50 acres? #8  
From 20-100 acres, about 1 hp/acre is what you want so 50 is just about perfect.
 
   / What is the right size for 50 acres? #9  
mikeydchicago34 said:
I just moved out to a farm i purchased, which is 50 acres. I have 20 acres hay pasture, 10 acres culitivated crops and 20 acres woodlands. I plan on someday baling my own hay but currently the neighbor does it for halves. What size tractor would best fit my place and would run baling implements. Thanks all.

I have 10 acres of flat pasture land and have a new Mahindra 5525 tractor (55 hp engine, 45 hp pto, gear tranny, weighs 5400 lb without filled tires) and the ML250 FEL (6-ft bucket, 2900 lb lift capacity at the bucket pivots). I had a much smaller Kubota B7510HST (21 hp engine, 17 hp pto) with the LA302 FEL (4 ft bucket) that I used while my new house was being built for landscaping, excavating for paver block walkways and a patio, mowing my weeds with a 4-ft brush hog, and for general toting.

I bought the 5525 to go haying on about 7 of the 10 acres. I have a MF-124 two-twine square baler that the 5525 handles with ease.

The 5525 would be a nice fit to your situation. Check it out.
 
   / What is the right size for 50 acres? #10  
We've got 50ac as well. About 15-20 is flat field, bordered by a creek and treelines. The remainder is spread over two decent sized hills and a sandy, wooded lowland on the other side of the creek. With all the trees & slopes, I wanted hydrostat to increase the maneuverability. At the time, the biggest HP hydrostat CUT was the Kubota L5030, at 50HP, and that's what I ultimately ended up with.

IMHO, it's the perfect size. I can mow with either a 90in finish cut mower, or a 7ft rotary cutter. I've run a disc up to 10ft. And I can still move the round bales that my neighbor bales for us. But that's the real rub -- I can't really run anything but the very smallest of hay equipment. But like I said, since my neighbor has all the gear, I figured there was no sense in us investing all the $$ in a larger tractor and more equipment.

As such, 50HP is just perfect for our 50ac. YMMV.
 
 
Top