Buying Advice Couple of Compact Options for 6ac in Middle TN

beallen25 · Jun 20, 2015

Morning All,
New member in the middle TN area, I have been on the site a ton but I finally decided to register and throw a question up here.

My turd little zero turn has laid down and now I am in the market for a new piece of equipment. For the price of a good used commercial ZT I can get an older little diesel tractor, which I could make good use of in my under grown wooded acres. I have seen alot of folks on here say get a zero turn to touch up mow and a tractor for the rest but I would prefer only having to deal with one tractor/mower at a time, and I don't feel like my little 6 acre lot warrants a warehouse worth of equipment I have researched until I am blue in the face so now I am just here looking for opinions.

Property Type: 6 acres total on a hill, 2 acres mowed with a fair amount of trees, 4 acres wooded with undergrowth that needs to be tended to
Tractor Options:
650 John Deere w/ Delmarino 5' rear finish mower - Looks a little cleaner, maybe more well maintained than the others, but it a 2cyl diesel
670 John Deere w/ 5' belly mower - 1992 model
Kubota 6200 4WD w/ 5' belly mower - 1985 model
All tractors are same price point, similar hours 1000-1200, turf tires, all will accept a small bush hog for the back lot undergrowth, all local

I have not entirely ruled out a purposed mower CZT but out of the three above assuming all are in good working order... What would you dooo?

Thanks in Advance for any advice/help!
Brandon

jeff9366 · Jun 20, 2015

My turd little zero turn has laid down and now I am in the market for a new piece of equipment.
Brandon

Don't use crude adjectives here; they do not add anything, they simply pollute. This site goes out all over the world. You can EDIT easily.

You can check the specs for each tractor at TRACTORDATA.COM.

LINK: TractorData.com - information on all makes and models of tractors

mddorange · Jun 20, 2015

:welcome:
To TBN Brandon. We bowl with a couple who have two daughters that live in Franklin. I myself am orignally from Clarksville.
As to your question, I originally had the riding mower and then got the tractor and still use both for different reasons.

amaxwell · Jun 20, 2015

With a lot of trees the zero turn will be much faster and you can mow a lot closer to the trees. Tractors don't turn nearly as sharp or as fast. However they won't do the job of a rotary cutter in the woods. As " mddorange" says they both have their own purpose. You will have to choose which you need the most, unless both can be purchased. There are people in this area that do "mulching", which will clean up the woods, and then it could maintained with a commercial zero turn mower.

Deere Dude · Jun 20, 2015

I wouldn't want a 3 point finish mower for around many trees. Mid mounts would be fine. I don't know how wooded it is but any of these tractors would work great for cleaning up the acrage if they have a FEL. I would be partial to that newer JD.

varmint · Jun 20, 2015

Nothing was said about a loader, but hopefully, that is part of the package. Once you have, and use, one you will wonder how you got along without it. And I would second the opinion that a mid-mount mower is much better for mowing around obstacles. Rear is fine for rough bush hogging, but mowing two acres, I'd want the MMM.

jenkinsph · Jun 20, 2015

beallen25 said:
Morning All,
New member in the middle TN area, I have been on the site a ton but I finally decided to register and throw a question up here.

My turd little zero turn has laid down and now I am in the market for a new piece of equipment. For the price of a good used commercial ZT I can get an older little diesel tractor, which I could make good use of in my under grown wooded acres. I have seen alot of folks on here say get a zero turn to touch up mow and a tractor for the rest but I would prefer only having to deal with one tractor/mower at a time, and I don't feel like my little 6 acre lot warrants a warehouse worth of equipment I have researched until I am blue in the face so now I am just here looking for opinions.

Property Type: 6 acres total on a hill, 2 acres mowed with a fair amount of trees, 4 acres wooded with undergrowth that needs to be tended to
Tractor Options:
650 John Deere w/ Delmarino 5' rear finish mower - Looks a little cleaner, maybe more well maintained than the others, but it a 2cyl diesel
670 John Deere w/ 5' belly mower - 1992 model
Kubota 6200 4WD w/ 5' belly mower - 1985 model
All tractors are same price point, similar hours 1000-1200, turf tires, all will accept a small bush hog for the back lot undergrowth, all local

I have not entirely ruled out a purposed mower CZT but out of the three above assuming all are in good working order... What would you dooo?

Thanks in Advance for any advice/help!
Brandon

First thing that comes to mind is that you only need a brush mower one time. After that a mmm should be able to keep it under control. In your case a small maneuverable mower would work the best. I have used my x749 to mow some heavily wooded areas and the 4x4ws works great for this. Much more maneuverable than the tractors listed above and is a 3 cylinder diesel too. Might want to look for a used one in the same price range.

paulfun9 · Jun 20, 2015

For me a lot would depend on how the property is laid out and the tree placement. I mow with a 72 finish mower on the back and have no problem getting close to over 20 trees that are in the 3 acres that are closest the house and not considered fields. The trees on the back half are a little more of a challenge but backing up to them the deck simply goes right under the branches and gets very close to them. In fact it gets closer to most of them then I ever got with the mid mount mower on the JD and its still faster than the mid mount was.
The other consideration is will each machine ride fairly smooth and if not which will beat me up more will also play a factor. I tested two ZTR s and was very unhappy with them as they beat me up just as much as the small box store mower. So for me getting a ZTR would mean spending the cash for one of the big Ferris machines with a decent suspension under it. That alone puts the price up there and being a single use machine makes it a no brainer to buy the tractor that has multiple uses.

GManBart · Jun 20, 2015

jeff9366 said:
Don't use crude adjectives here; they do not add anything, they simply pollute. This site goes out all over the world. You can EDIT easily.

There is a report function for posts outside of the rules that will let the moderators decide whether a post is okay or not. There's no need to go taking a new member to task for something so minor.

GManBart · Jun 20, 2015

Without seeing the land in person, and how tightly the trees are spaced, it's really hard for anyone to give good advice.

I know that in comparing a 48" ZRT to a 90" finish mower, there wasn't much time difference between the two. In open areas the 90" mower was clearly a bit faster, but as soon as I had to change directions to back into places, turn around a tree, get close to a fence, etc, the ZTR was faster.

I would expect that in most situations a 60" belly or 3pt finish mower will be quite a bit slower than almost any ZTR. You're just finding what we all run into...there is no one perfect setup for everything, and most of the time we're balancing a compromise in one way or another.