Cut 10ac with finish mower - Advice Requested

[bigtiller]

I would buy a 4' rough cut mower for the tractor. A little bit of high grass/weeds occasionally is fine for your finish mower but not 10 acres.

Or put an ad on Craigs List for someone to bale it for hay again.

 

[BackRoad]

Choose your poison...

I've got ~12 acres that I mow with an 8' (3) spindle Rhino finish mower. It takes a few hours and I mow it about every 3 weeks, with field grass mixed with Queen Anne's Lacy and other wanna-be weeds...but that is for Northern PA...

Not Muskogee, OK! (Lived in Tulsa for 25 years, so familiar with OK grasses and ~9 months of growing season).

Using the finish mower makes it look like my front lawn has spread over 12 acres when I'm done.

There are some rough areas (doesn't affect the mower, just the tractor driver) but still able to mow in M range with the ~60hp MX6000.

I've also got a good used 7' Woods rotary cutter that I use on my other fields
- so my use of the finish mower is by choice.


It would be T.O.R.T.U.R.E to mow it with a 4 foot finish mower, and double painful to let it go beyond 3 weeks of growth trying to use a finish mower.

The other question is just how smooth your pasture is.

Give it a try, use what you've got...your only investment is time...

Long-term, if I were planning to only cut 2-3 times a year, and smooth was not a priority, I would pick-up a good used rotary cutter from Marketplace. Check your specs and look for the BIGGEST your tractor will handle.

You will likely see lots of them listed around you in OK and AR, so be selective.

Good luck, with whatever you decide.

 

[arto98607]

Let me start by saying I'm grew up a city guy living the country life now. I don't know all these farm implement names, terms, etc. So please ignore my ignorance.

Anywho, I own 10 acre field a few miles from me. Nothing is there, it's just a field. I had local guy cut it for rough hay for his horses for a few years which kept it rough trimmed. He has since stopped over the past 2 years, so I was going to start cutting it myself once or twice a year just to keep it trimmed. I own a New Holland TC18 and a 4' finish mower rear discharge, and I unfortunately sold my brush hog a few years back. I was thinking I could use the finish mower at it's highest level to cut this field. It's not thick, just some weeds and growth could be like 3ft high or so.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance..

Looks like your NH TC18 has the same engine as my 1986 Ford 1310 (it's a Shibaura 1.0L 3 cylinder Diesel with about 19 HP or so)!

I run a 5' Ford 917L which was meant to use "side slicer" or Y-flails.
It uses little less power than my 48" JD 413 brush hog and leaves a nicer looking field after cutting.

I think most 60" flail mowers with side slicer flails would be a good fit with your TC18.

Edit:
Oops, it looks like TC18 has a quite a bit smaller tractor frame since it's about 600 lbs lighter and is a foot narrower than 1310 is.
Not sure if 60" flail mower is such a good fit - maybe others with TC18 experience can chime in?

 

[workinonit]

Looks real nice. You don’t even have turf tires and the grass looks smooth as a football field. Is that the offset cutter?

Yessir. Hydraulic, both ways. I've always run R1 tires and never had an issue. When it's really wet they will leave imprints but they grow over. One thing about R1s is that they don't mash the grass down like turfs and R4s do. This mower is like a vacuum. I absolutely love it. I've always cut this with a 20' Frontier FM but since I got this I've been using it. Takes longer but who cares.

 

[FastEddieR]

I had local guy cut it for rough hay for his horses for a few years which kept it rough trimmed. He has since stopped over the past 2 years,

There should be another guy in the area that's willing to cut your field for hay. After it's cleaned up and you know what quality your hay is you can have someone cut it and bale for you to sell, or they'll cut and bale for a share.

 

[TractorGuy]

My experience has been that a higher cut setting yields a poorer cut quality than a lower one. I'm sure there is a happy medium somewhere but I can almost promise you won't be happy with the mower set at the highest level. Even if you sharpen the blades they will dull quick and just knock the grass over.

I would set it at 3 or 4 inches and go real slow to start. Probably going to take a couple of days or more with a 4' mower.

 

[Richard]

I used to cut the farm here (helping out my wife's father and uncle who also live here and gave us our plot of land)

Only problem is, they had an old International 444 and a 5' rotary cutter.... and the grassy part of the farm is (guessing) about 100 acres.

If the grass got tall, I literally had to be in low range, 1st gear and it took F.O.R.E.V.E.R. to get things done BUT I preferred that "I" do it at say, 35/40 years old, verses them do it at say, 70 years old.

Finally, one year, it literally took me ALL summer to cut the place. It was a mess. So I told the wife, I can't just throw my entire summer away cutting the place....so I stopped.

A year later, a bigger IH showed up with a 10' mower!!! NOW I'm cutting in 3rd gear and 10' wide verses 5' (forgetting overlap)

Father in law died, his son sold that tractor so I bought an International 1066 myself with a 15' flexwing.

TODAY, if conditions permit (dry and I start early) I COULD get the entire place cut in a single day if I wanted to exhaust myself.... but, I don't. I actually enjoy cutting so I'll cut a field today, another one next week...and just rotate a bit.

Now that I've got the 15' footer I'll cut the field next to the other field that is next to the house (so the 'farm' field is within visual distance) I'll cut that one every other week or so, keeping it looking nice throughout the summer.

If I'm you I'd consider something larger *OR* maybe something like a 15' finish mower (maybe they're 12'?? I don't know) Anyway, keeps it nicer looking but since it's wider you can shorten your cut time.

 

[Hay Dude]

Or a flail. I love a flail for that type of growth.

I like a discbine
Followed by a rake and a baler

 

[Hay Dude]

It'll work. Just gotta go a bit slow and will probably take 2 days as said. The belts should be just fine. I've mowed higher with my ZTR many times (the g'kid did here) with no problems at all..

And being rear discharge, you wont have to worry about doing half passes.. Get yourself a bushhog in the off season for next year.

Dr Fauci says you should wear your mask over your nose and mouth instead of your eyes lol

 

[workinonit]

I like a discbine
Followed by a rake and a baler

You're welcome to come bale it but I doubt your livestock will like Bahaia as much as what you are growing. I suspect they won't eat it. I know you can't sell it around here. But it makes a pretty good driving range.