72" finish mower on a 21hp tractor???

[IslandTractor]

Last year I began mowing 3-4 sloping acres of rough terrain pasture in a coastal climate. I use a 5' rear discharge RFM on a SCUT with 18 HP at the PTO.

Your situation seems reasonably close to what I face though I imagine you might get more rain in the summer than we typically do. The main growing season here is May/June as after that the summer heat seems to dry things up. The grasses are not very thick in most places as the pasture has never really recovered from over farming in colonial times and is rather sandy. I have thought about fertilizing and correcting pH but that might just make my mowing problem worse. I don't think I would have the sorts of problems with lush grass that Schisim and Bob have in the midwest.

The photo I posted was a "before" photo and some of the edges have already been cleaned up so there is not all that much edge work. On the other hand, there is now a lot more land that presumably will grow grasses since I have removed scrub trees and briar. I've also salvaged a number of once overgrown wild blueberry bushes from briar. One reason I was thinking of the 6foot mower was so I'd have a foot or slightly more of mower outside my rear tires so I could get at the briar/brambles that tend to grow under the many blueberry bushes. Otherwise I need to either walk around with a weedwacker or back the mower into the bush to nail the nasty buggers.

I am slowly coming to the conclusion that either the 5 foot finish or flail mower might be the way to go due to the PTO issues but I still don't quite get the weight concerns that some posters have brought up. The finish mowers are essentially towed as they have four wheels. Why would a 600lb wheeled mower be any more difficult for my tractor to manage than the 800lb suspended backhoe I routinely travel up and down this property with? I suspect my tractor with loaded tires is about the same weight as a Kubota B7800 or B3030 and those tractors routinely pull six foot mowers.

Thanks to all for your thoughts and advice.

 

[IslandTractor]

Hi Ed,

..... By the way, when do you sleep 3:00 am post?

John

You caught me! Actually I only post at this hour when I am either outside the US or jet lagged after returning. Here is a tractor photo I took last week while working in northwest Pakistan. To keep the post relevant, it was interesting to note that virtually all the tractors there were either MFs or Fiat and were all about 45-60hp. No FELs at all. No mowers or lawns either. Just plows, cultivators and road trailers. They also use the tractors the way we use pickup trucks and they decorate them as you'll see in the photo.

 

[EquipmentJunkie]

I didn't know that there were Mummers in Pakistan! That tractor would look at home in Philadelphia on New Year's Day.

Thanks for the cross-cultural photo.

I didn't even consider a flail mower before some of these posts. That may be a good avenue to explore.

 

[JerryG]

Ed,
Just another point to think about. If it is very steep, more horsepower will have to be used to move the tractor and mower. Then there will be less power available for the mower.

 

[IslandTractor]

Good point. There is one 12 degree section that is about 100 feet long, the rest is just a gentle slope. The whole stretch I need to mow goes from 10 feet above sea level to about 60 feet elevation over 900 feet so most of it is like the area in the photo in my initial post. I suppose I might need to mow the steep section only going down hill if there is not enough power though I can climb that section with my bush hog running without bogging down too much. Photo shows steepest section.

 

[IslandTractor]

I didn't know that there were Mummers in Pakistan! That tractor would look at home in Philadelphia on New Year's Day.

Thanks for the cross-cultural photo.

I didn't even consider a flail mower before some of these posts. That may be a good avenue to explore.

We haven't discussed flail mowers on this thread but the Caroni 5ft flail is another mower on my short list. It costs about the same or less than a good 5ft finish mower (about $1200 delivered) and is made by a reputable Italian company that has been making quality mowers for years. It is not a road crew "run over anything" type of flail but rather what I'd consider a medium duty machine that should serve a homeowner/landowner pretty well. AgriSupply has carried them for years and has all the parts etc. There are pros and cons for flail vs finish, the pro that has my attention is that they are less likely to be damaged when hitting a rock or stump and as I am cutting a reclaimed chunk of pasture/woods in New England, those obstacles will be present.

By the way, on the subject of Mummers in Philly and decorated tractors in Pakistan...the tractor guys there have nothing on the truckers or bus drivers. See photos.

 

[scott_vt]

Hey Ed,
Those pictures remind me a little of the Haight Ashbury district in California back in the late sixties !

 

[Oleozz]

Every summer I mow roughly 40 acres of fields with a 5 ft brush hog. Lots of hills and heavy thick weeds, some as high as 6 feet. The JD seldom bogged down in any of this stuff (CRP land). The lawn was mowed, as I mentioned before, with the 6 ft Woods finish mower. Our lawn is lush and thick, you never could tell that there was even a mower hooked on. When lifting the Woods, that's when you noticed the difference and could be a bit scary when going up a hill unless I carried weights on the front.
I also spent an entire summer mowing lawns for the school district, a boring job for sure. One of the mowers I used was a flail mower pulled behind an old MF. I was never real satisfied with the cut that I got from the flail as compared to the other mower which was a Woods finish mower.

 

[IslandTractor]

Hey Ed,
Those pictures remind me a little of the Haight Ashbury district in California back in the late sixties !

Well, I can guaranty you there were no dope smokin' hippies in the trucks or buses! These folks, though perfectly pleasant and helpful, were about as far removed from the hippie lifestyle culture as you can imagine. God fearing, ultra conservative, don't touch alcohol and are about as xenophobic as any people I've ever met (and I travel professionally to places like this quite a lot). Though the people were actually quite friendly to me, it ain't hard to imagine that old ***** is able to hide out in this part of the world. They just want to be left alone and despise government in general. They really are very poorly informed about the outside world, very poor, and have very high illiteracy rates. People in a nearby district killed a health officer a couple of weeks ago for the crime of promoting polio vaccine after some nutter convinced them the vaccine was part of a government plot to harm them in some way. I can even sympathize with the Pakistani government for being caught between some of these peoples' more radical cousins on the one hand and the USA on the other demanding that more control be exerted over tribal lands. However, those issues aside, they do a nice job of decorating their tractors.

 

[Chris_T]

I have a JD 2305 and a Buhler/Farm King 72" RFM. I wouldn't have considered it except we are flat flat flat! I haven't noticed a problem with power except when what I'm mowing is overgrown and wet. Even then I have more problem with loading the mower up than with bogging it down.

The biggest thing we had to consider was the weight on the 3ph. I don't recall the specs or weight of the mower, but we're probably approaching the capacity. I would generally prefer to remove the loader to mow, but if it is removed the front end becomes light and you could lift it off the ground by leaning on the back of the mower raised on the 3ph. Instead, I leave the loader arms and frame on, but remove the bucket. I can see a front weight bracket in my future to increase visibility.