I Need a Bigger Tractor

[JethroB]

Some great comments and suggestions. The link in Dustys #2 post leads to a lot of good info. The USDA CRP program is very popular in my area along with planted pines, mostly long leaf here in recent years. I have not seen prescribed burning mentioned. Fire was Mother Natures great housekeeping tool for 1000s of years. It helps keep your woodlands and fields free of the undergrowth and invasive plants we geniuses imported in the last couple hundred years. Your state forestry service may be of help with burning.

Also spending this winter with your open station may help you decide on a Cab or not. A cab will likely inhibit your ingres/egress ease. Tilt steering wheels definitely help too.

 

[JWR]

You don't need a wildlife biologist, you just need to stop mowing! That the wildlife was doing just fine before you took their habitat away...

If I was you, I'd want a bigger tractor too, they are just so much nicer, and in many cases safer, to own than a little tractor on a bigger property.

SR

Amen Sawyer. The wildlife biologist will add zero value. He's not the one living there. I read all the posts up to now now and have a few comments for the property owner: 1) Cutting meadows where hay is the crop twice a year is plenty. There is no "real" reason to mow more than twice a year. If your city-folk background or whatever personal preferences demand that it look more like a groomed lawn ... oh well you pay the fare. To each his own. 2) If most/all of what you mow (the "45 acres") is meadow and not brush and not many downed limbs, stones, etc. you should consider a flail mower. I have both a 7ft bush hog and a 7.5 ft flail and I think the flail is faster to use than the hog and width would seem. Also a flail leaves a flatter "rolled down" appearance in a meadow which may fit your aesthetics better. Often available at auctions. Being a city guy you need to attend a few auctions just for education. 3) Your investment in the 3901 is not a bad one. It should bring good money selling it straight out OR as trade in. Especially going to a bigger tractor I think you need to look at used ones with low hours. You may be able to avoid the EPA nuisances better that way and do just as well dollar wise as you would trading in. 4) Someone else suggested -- Look at your overall scope of what you intend to do with the tractor in the life of the machine AND your life. If it is mainly mowing 45 acres of meadow-characteristic fields, yes a larger machine would be 'good.' I'd suggest the 6040 size that another post mentioned as being about right. I use an 81 horse MF with a 7ft hog and 7.5ft flail as I mentioned before maintaining 56 acres of mowable land out 0f 100 acre total. My renters mow the 10 acres or so of that 56 for hay once a year and I usually mow the meadows a second time. Much of mine is steep or at best hilly land. 5) I don't recall you mentioned a front end loader? On that size property if you don't have one you will want one and "they ain't cheap." Such useful applications for the FEL pop up daily.

Good luck of course and keep us updated on your tractor life.

p.s.: I like the stick trans better than an HST but that is preference mostly. Going under trees, etc. you may want to think about that with a cab (which is costly and easy to damage going under overhanging trees.) You are critical of your "hay mower" but I suggest you not throw him under the bus too quickly. Doing a third cutting of hay per season is not normal in WV and a I bet it is not in Tenn either. Reliable trustworthy partners to get hay cut and put up (even for free) are not all that easy to replace inmost places. Look before you leap.

 

[TractorGuy]

You and me both brother!

 

[dusty3030]

Amen Sawyer. The wildlife biologist will add zero value. He's not the one living there. .

I'll have to disagree with that. In TN in partnership with Quail Forever you can get some nice cost sharing dollars for seed, spraying and burning - without the long term commitment of putting it in CRP. Why leave free advice and cost share dollars on the table? You can also get access to students from some of the state colleges to do tree planting for a great price.

 

[Bullwinkle123]

I have an MX5400 and the 6' medium duty Landpride RCF2072 cutter weighing in at 745 lbs. I spent all weekend doing my treacherous (hilly, with lost of semi-hole dips) field and it's a very nice combo. I don't see how you can go wrong with it unless you want an even larger cutter since you have many more acres to cut than me.

I only cut my field once a year, in mid-late October. The field is for wildlife, so we want all those wild blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, milkweeds, and flowering plants to grow (lupine, aster, comfrey, the list goes on). There are also very aggressive birch/cherry/aspen saplings that fill the field, and those are also food, the porcupines especially like the tender shoots when the plants are first coming in and there isn't much else to eat.

If I cut it more than once a year I fear it would just become an all grass field. After a full year of growth, it's a pretty aggressive bunch of stuff to cut, but the MX5400 and 6' cutter did it with ease and very nicely.

Anyway, good luck, just endorsing the MX5400 and also leaving the field for the wildlife. Oh, and the June fireflies are _spectacular_.

 

[DanielDD]

Again, I want to thank you all for your informed opinions and suggestions. I thought I would update you all at this particular juncture....

Last week I made an appointment and looked at a Kubota M4-061 with a 12 foot rotary cutter. Loved it! When it came time to talk price, I wasn't too happy with trading mine in. They were only going to give me $15K and I would have to shell out another $51K to take the M4 home. So, I went to another Kubota dealer. They suggested the M4-071 instead of the M4-061 and a medium duty cutter (the original estimate from the other dealer was for a heavy duty Land Pride). They were going to give me $2K more for my tractor and gave me a better deal of $45.8K OTD. I would have to order the tractor at this point, but as I got to talking to the salesman(which I originally bought my L3901 from), he suggested keeping the L3901 for working in the woods and using the M4 for the larger areas. While this makes more sense, it is a big financial bite to take for just mowing the fields.

So, at the moment, I am sitting tight and not doing anything tractor wise. I have cut most of my acreage with what I have and am employing 2 local guys to finish up for me and that should do it until Spring of next year. Maybe by that time I will know more about what I want to cut and how to accomplish that.

We have contacted a wildlife habitat biologist and he is meeting us Friday to look our land over and discuss options. Hopefully this will help us decide how best to utilize what we have so we can finally arrive at a happy place here instead of me stressing all the time about the need to cut it all. Maybe as time goes on I'll settle into the farm life and it will be the blessing it was intended to be.

 

[JWR]

First a comment on the rotary cutters: I doubt that you have any need for what the manufacturers call "Heavy Duty." Not only are they pricey but they are very unnecessarily heavy for most work. A Landpride "medium duty" will impress you as a heavy machine and a heavy duty machine. My Bush Hog 797 7 foot hog is called medium duty, weighs 1460 lbs and I cannot imagine a need for a heavier one unless you re clearing thorn trees 3" in diameter for a steady diet. I also owned a Landpride 6ft so-called medium duty finish mower (2672 I think it was) and it was what I would call heavy duty too.

Suggestion: If you are not using your L3901 over the winter much, put it up for sale. With very low hours like that you can probably get more out of it than the dealer gives you (in reality, not the fake prices) for trade in. Then next spring early before the seasonal buying rush go back to your dealer and make him an offer with no trade in and dicker on the price. The M4-071 should be great for what you are doing.

AND I hope you will relax a bit , have some fun, and sit back and really enjoy your new life.

 

[Bullwinkle123]

First a comment on the rotary cutters: I doubt that you have any need for what the manufacturers call "Heavy Duty." Not only are they pricey but they are very unnecessarily heavy for most work. A Landpride "medium duty" will impress you as a heavy machine and a heavy duty machine.

I have the landpride RCF2072, a "medium duty" cutter. It's my only cutter experience, but I can say that after its second day in the field, it has at least three deformities, two clearly from rocks (looks like the rock was molded into the metal), and one from I don't know what. My field is rough but not _so_ rough, however it only takes one rock to tumble into the field from the stone walls all around it to ... make an impression ...

Anyway, found myself wondering if I needed thicker steel! And my blades, well, it isn't pretty. Hope those chipped bits don't find my tires. Next year should be better, as the rocks are hopefully removed and hopefully won't come back. Hopefully. New England. I'm in denial.

 

[JWR]

There is not what I'd call great standardization of terminology among the rotary cutters. In Landpride , the RCF2072 specs talk about up to 2" diam. light brush and does not say what "duty." The RCR2672 calls itself medium duty and says brush up to 3" diam. Their RCF36 is the heaviest and mentions "small trees up to 4" diam." When I mention medium duty among manufacturers I'm talking the RCR2672 or equal. Compare prices and literally weight -- by the pound -- and it will become clear to you what light/std duty versus medium duty versus serious HD is.

 

[Mat4644]

Spend $60K to save 20 hours a year mowing!