How heavy should a tractor be?

[Indian Territory]

One of the problems we have now is simply the lack of steering control and lateral shifting.

With what width/weight implements in use?

Could tire selection, lack of front weight, or overly wide/heavy implements be creating the steering issues you’ve experienced with the 1,900 pound subcompact tractor you have? ( milkman636 )

Many garden one acre IN GOOD TILTH with 1,900 pound subcompact tractors and patience.

March 1,2020​

We are turning over acreage that has grown hay for 30 years. The field is flat and even, with a slight south facing slope, with few to no rocks. I am determined to turn the sod using a moldboard plow. The ground is simply too compacted without this step.

Our intention it to plant a 1-2 acre vegetable garden. We may sell some produce for supplemental income.

Plowing one acre of MOIST compacted soil with a single bottom/furrow, 12" wide moldboard plow in good condition and correct plow technique should be within the capability of your 1,900 pound subcompact tractor.

Do you have a mid-mount mower? Is the MMM off?

A PTO powered, forward rotation, 48" - 60" wide roto-tiller is a reasonable choice for smoothing plow furrows in slightly moist soil using a 1,900 pound bare weight tractor.

After year one ground conditioning, a tiller should be adequate for one pass, Spring, slightly moist soil preparation unless the weeds have gotten totally out of control. Alternate tilling direction from one year to the next.

Be sure to have your soil tested, notifying the tester of your intended crop(s).

Thanks for all this. Good suggestions.

Our implements are all 4’ wide and down:
—1-bottom, 14-inch moldboard plow with coulter blade and depth gauge wheel.
—Tiller. Forward rotating.
—brush mowever

No MMM

Strangely the things that give us the most trouble are less ground-engaging. Bed shapers, etc.

Our tilts leaves much to be desired, despite our amendments. Very heavy clay, which may well be the real problem.

 

[workinonit]

I basically do the same thing you are doing. I use my JD 5090(8000 lbs) for breaking ground and running a 6' tiller for prep along with other things like discing, turn plowing and chisel plowing. Once that is done I have 2 Farmall 140s that are used for bed prep, planting and cultivating. I also have a tobacco transplanter that I use for tomato sets and the like. I use my Polaris ranger with a 40 gallon spray rig for spraying. It's hard to beat a 140 for vegetable growing.

 

[Indian Territory]

Sorry I don’t have answers, only questions.

Would the extra 4000 lbs on similar sized rubber just result in deeper compaction and having to wait a little longer for the soil to dry out before you get on it?

Do you expect that the extra weight would allow you to till with wider implements or possibly bed or cultivate one more row on each pass?

Could tire selection or lack of front counterweight factor into the steering issues you’ve experienced?

Fair questions. I’m happy to have so many options to think through.

If we had a larger machine, we’d likely expand our tiny implements into moderate sized implements given enough time. But that’s not my primary concern. Just maintaining control is the trickiest part. My soil may well be to blame. Very heavy clay.

I do not have front weights, but I do carry a 4’6 section of my great grandpa’s old house footing in the front bucket. Seems to help some, but not enough.

 

[rScotty]

People tend to start with one tractor to "do it all", and end up with several. For what you are doing I'd get one 5000 lb tractor with a FEL that can lift 3000 lbs, and a couple of Farmall Cubs. Then I'd scour the county for original implements for those Cubs.
rScotty

 

[Bill Guenthner]

Fair questions. I’m happy to have so many options to think through.

If we had a larger machine, we’d likely expand our tiny implements into moderate sized implements given enough time. But that’s not my primary concern. Just maintaining control is the trickiest part. My soil may well be to blame. Very heavy clay.

I do not have front weights, but I do carry a 4’6 section of my great grandpa’s old house footing in the front bucket. Seems to help some, but not enough.

I have heavy clay soil as well. When it’s at all wet no amount of weight will allow you to steer a straight line. It’s like grease.

 

[Hay Dude]

People tend to start with one tractor to "do it all", and end up with several. For what you are doing I'd get one 5000 lb tractor with a FEL that can lift 3000 lbs, and a couple of Farmall Cubs. Then I'd scour the county for original implements for those Cubs.
rScotty

A 5000lb tractor lifting 3000lbs in the loader is going to lift the back tires off the ground.

 

[jeff9366]

Our soil tilth leaves much to be desired, despite our amendments. Very heavy clay, which may be the problem.

The field is flat and even, with a slight south facing slope, with few to no rocks.

Keeping adding organic matter to your garden. Can you collect composted leaves and grass clippings from your city waste department?

Be grateful for the southern slope, for drainage, drying and the potential for a one week earlier harvest than your competitors.

Have you dug a pit to see what constitutes the upper 18" of soil?

A soil test will give you a good read on the nutrients and soil pH in the critical top 6" layer but I would want to know about the next 12" below before deep plowing.

When you purchase a heavier tractor an All Purpose Plow will allow you to rip 14" deep. Don't rip unless you have dug a pit on your one acre to inform yourself about the soil content 18" deep. Ten pits on ten acres.

Dirt Dog - All Purpose Plow / Field Cultivator REVIEW + PICTURES

Dirt Dog All Purpose Plow / Field Cultivator Dirt Dog Model APP 66-5 Total Width 66", Working Width 62", Five Tines, Weight 284 Pounds, Paid $835.00 (2010) Field Cultivator: A Three Point Hitch mounted, secondary tillage implement, used to perform operations such as soil aeration...

www.tractorbynet.com

For ten to twenty acres of vegetables few here will dispute a recommendation for a tractor of ~4,000 to ~5,000 pounds bare tractor weight.

I’m certain I want a +5,000 lb tractor.

5,000 pounds if a Category 2 TPH and heavier, 30" wider implements are needed or if you need to regularly lift one ton or more with the FEL. For veggies I would test air inflated tires first, then, if air inflated rear tires do not give sufficient traction pulling your implements, 50% liquid fill.

Avoid compacting clay.

 

[oldnslo]

Basic guideline for Putting power to the ground is 100 - 130 lbs per HP. If doing lots of loader work then more weight in rear is your friend. I have always preferred bigger taller tires for better pull.

any local dealers allows test drive on your property? That is the best way to see how they perform for you. What works for me may not work for you.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

You'll have more permanent ruts than rows with a 3-4.5 ton 75+ hp tractor on one acre (or 10).

3
We had a tractor die with a 14' disc behind it. The neutral switch is a touchy situation. Went and retrieved it with another tractor. Two of us were in a 1 ton flat bed with good grips on it. There were 3 vehicles to drive back. The truck was spinning and cutting down as it moved. The big tractor only left cleat marks. Tire body itself never touched, only the tread bars. I know that tractor weighs 13,600 pounds. It stays up very well. It pulls good too. It will boil dirt over a 5 yard dirt pan. I've done it.

 

[HST4Me]

Our implements are all 4’ wide and down:
—1-bottom, 14-inch moldboard plow with coulter blade and depth gauge wheel.
—Tiller. Forward rotating.
—brush mowever

Very heavy clay, which may well be the real problem.

The MFWD 1620 I just sold sounds like it would have been perfect for your current setup. Not a disposable plastic toy like the boomer 24 - has plenty of grunt and weight. Enjoyed it on R1s even more than turfs/R4s. No issues with moving round bales, pulling the double water wheel transplanter, or digging in with the keyline plow. Perfect for 7' sickle, 5' box blade, and 4' tiller. Good track width for veg and your current 4' wide implements. HST made life easy.

Anyone suggesting a big tractor doesn't understand veg on small acreage imo. Find something that works for what you run now, but is "chonky" enough to help open up more of your land on slower days. Don't get a tractor that will literally rut up and compact a 1/4 of your current operation just pulling it out of the shed on a rainy day...

As for your clay: the more you plow it, the more you'll make cement out of it. I've found fall planted cereal rye does wonders for aerating clay in addition to creating a weed free mat for fall veg after sickling in the summer. The more organic matter you can build, the less you'll be bothered by clay's drawbacks and more you'll be able to enjoy its benefits (excellent nutrient and water holding capacity). Take a look at how richard perkins, charles dowding, and morag gamble use compost and mulch. Their methods translate surprisingly well to larger fields with little more than a tractor, sicklebar, and hay rake.

 

[milkman636]

Fair questions. I’m happy to have so many options to think through.

If we had a larger machine, we’d likely expand our tiny implements into moderate sized implements given enough time. But that’s not my primary concern. Just maintaining control is the trickiest part. My soil may well be to blame. Very heavy clay.

I do not have front weights, but I do carry a 4’6 section of my great grandpa’s old house footing in the front bucket. Seems to help some, but not enough.

Have you checked the alignment of your front tires? If toe-in is out of adjustment it could cause tracking trouble. Running in FWD will exaggerate it also because the front pulls slightly faster than the rears.

I also think ag tires are a benefit in your situation.

 

[Indian Territory]

Have you checked the alignment of your front tires? If toe-in is out of adjustment it could cause tracking trouble. Running in FWD will exaggerate it also because the front pulls slightly faster than the rears.

I also think ag tires are a benefit in your situation.

I’m going to give this a look. Can’t hurt; might help.

 

[Iowa Hillbilly]

I think the vast majority of smaller scale vegetable farming tasks are easily accomplished with a 3000-6500lb tractor. A large fraction of that can be done with smaller tractors. I worked on a vegetable farm as a young man and one year we used a Honda Foreman ATV as a tractor for pulling trailers loaded with tomatoes as part of the fleet. It got the job done, but the ATV was pretty well destroyed by the end of the season. The engine and transmission were both shot and I wouldn't recommend the practice. That said the low pressure tires helped it work. I think lower pressure radial tires may help you out a lot more than more tractor weight will. I also think tire spacing appropriate to bed width and really tight turning radius is a very important factors for vegetable work. If you want to do towed behind transplanting, you'll really want a creeper gear or HST.

 

[priberc]

I’m a hobby farmer. Flatland. Old school organic kinda deal. Possibly haying in the future. But mostly vegetable crops. Deep plowing. Tilling. Bed shaping. Seeding. No high hp commodity crops like corn or soybeans. I’m preparing to trade my NH Boomer 24, which is far too light to be useful. I’ve had a 75hp NH in the past at about 5,000 pounds, which felt pretty planted to the ground. The NH Powerstar 75 I’m currently considering weighs in at about 6,000 pounds. But the Massey Ferguson 4700’s are closing in on 9,000 pounds. Is 9,000 pounds going to translate to better performance in a mostly light-duty application like mine? Thanks for the advice!

Row spacing is from what to what? I would be looking at the width of the inside of the tires/how much ,if any adjustment is there on the front and rear axles. What working width are your planters seeders and inter row cultivation/weeding tools. IMO Deep plowing/tilling in a well worked garden will not require over 50hp. I read in another post you have 1ac in market garden now 10ac is a goal and a max of 20ac. If it was me.....I would be looking in the 40hp range for up to 10ac. If weight is a concern .....well from wheel weights to fluid in the tires there is many ways to add ballast to tractors.
Considering 75 hp for 10 ac of garden is big time over kill....IMO even if the full 20ac was put to market garden with portions fallow/in green manure for plow down 75 hp is way too much. And any attachments you get for it for vegetables will likely be for much bigger fields
"Possibly haying in the future" buying a tractor for something you may "possibly" do in the future......mmmmm I don't know if that is wise. You have 20ac total and in another post you seem to think that up to 10 of that may be used for market garden. For 10ac of hay you will need a mower conditioner a rake and a baler on top of what ever vegetable equipment you will need for for your 60 - 70K NH tractor. All of a sudden your hobby farm has 100- 125K worth of tractor and attachments for how much revenue?
Much better returns out of vegetables per ac than hay.....if it was me I would give up on the "possibly hay in the future" idea keep equipment costs as low as possible
Maybe fence and rent pasture for any unused potions of your land. Is that an option? If you cant rent pasture? Is there some one to custom harvest/share crop your land that is not used for vegetables?

 

[Bobrown14]

For longevity and down the road parts availability, I'd stick with NH.

Many of the NH tractors in the 50hp category are made by LS - something to think about. My LS is 52hp and tbh pretty heavy 4400#s.

I have to wait for the ground to harden to drive in the fields unless I wanna tear it up. I'm just now comfortable going out in the fields as its finally drying up.

I'm basically the same as the OP - 30 acres organic farm. A rear tiller and a bedder are tools I cant grow without.

I'll do and small sweet corn crop but thats gonna be hand planted already tilled the patch for that.

We grow our own green manures that we use for compost. So several large patches for that. Tiller here is a must but you could do the same with a moldboard plow and bedder/discs (2 passes).

My 2021 LS MT352 cost me $28K without a tiller. Get a tiller that is the width of your tractor and get your wheels filled = 5K#s. It's heavy in soft ground but I'm getting used to it.

 

[jeff9366]

Consider an Unverferth Perfecta:

 

[Surshot]

i do not grow row crops, I grow trees. So my problem is a very limited maneuvering space, between the rows, and a need for weight and power with power steering. I have a Kubota L4400, 45 hp, 4x4. I opted for the standard trans to increase the hp to the tires, filled the tires with water and increased the lift capability of the FEL to near 5,000 lbs. I useually operate with a root rake with 1” thich tines or forks, a two ram grapple and a heavy Bushog, Bushog on the 3 point hitch. The Bushog counter balances the lifting weight. Each tire weighs 800 pounds, so the total package is heavy.
I have an 18” cutter head heavy frame House disk and a landscape rake. The 3rd pass with the House disk is to the axles in this had clay.
I have planted a couple acre or so food plot, deer ate it up as soon as it came up. Deer here are pretty bad about eating everything green. They come out 20-30 at a time on my 250 meter rifle range to eat the grass.
I would go for a low, wide stance, heavy tractor with enough power to pull a heavy cutter head disk set. It should be able to make sharp turn without skidding or hopping. My upgrade will be an M series 50 hp, same width, industrial tires for mowing. That steel canopy is a life saver, literally.

 

[mo1]

I’m a hobby farmer. Flatland. Old school organic kinda deal. Possibly haying in the future. But mostly vegetable crops. Deep plowing. Tilling. Bed shaping. Seeding. No high hp commodity crops like corn or soybeans. I’m preparing to trade my NH Boomer 24, which is far too light to be useful. I’ve had a 75hp NH in the past at about 5,000 pounds, which felt pretty planted to the ground. The NH Powerstar 75 I’m currently considering weighs in at about 6,000 pounds. But the Massey Ferguson 4700’s are closing in on 9,000 pounds. Is 9,000 pounds going to translate to better performance in a mostly light-duty application like mine? Thanks for the advice!

You don't need a lot of HP to work up a vegetable garden. A 9000 pound 75 HP tractor will not even know it's pulling the size of implements you'd use for an acre of garden, which are generally in the 4-7' range and designed for a 40 HP and under unit for the most part. A 75 HP full sized utility tractor does have a lot more ground clearance than modern compact tractors and you get a lot more options with wheel spacing, both of which are important if you are cultivating with the tractor. The "middle ground" is to get an older tractor like a Farmall A without a lot of weight or horsepower but with all of the ground clearance and wheel spacing adjustments.

I will admit to using an 8000 pound 75 HP utility tractor in a fairly large garden on the scale of yours to work up the ground and to cultivate. This isn't why I got this specific machine, but since I have it, it gets used and actually works quite well for the reasons listed above. You do compact the ground some but it's in between rows so it's not as big of a deal as it could be. The big thing is to not try to run through the garden when it's too wet, but that is good advice regardless. I would consider 75 HP as a starting point for haying if you intend on doing round bales or using a disc mower. You could get away with a 40-50 HP utility tractor for a Haybine and a small square baler.

 

[Mud2Money]

I run a Mt573. Loaded rears , qh. It’s 63pto hp and pretty darn heavy. I have it and it’s reliable so it’s been my go to. I also have smaller acreage “ 14” and several small parcels 2-4 acres. But my ground is rock hard grey clay. I’ve had a few older tractors and did okay trying to work ground but still struggled. This new rig and my 7’ hd tiller do really well. I also have some compaction and drainage issues. I pull a 24” single shank subsoiler when needed. It also works great for making rows. I do have a delay hitting the fields early season due to moisture. But mid summer and fall this clay is like concrete and it gets hardly any compaction. I still have my case 630com for light chores. We are going to be getting into deep into lavender. So I think next year I will be buying a bedder.

I’d say it comes down to chores and soil types/climate. I use my tractor for maintaining a large drive and the lot around the barn. I think in the future though I wouldn’t mind a decent 30-35hp tractor for smaller vegetable crops and areas. The ls does work fine for rows. Rear tire width was only 74”

 

[fishheadbob]

I recently downsized from a 3930 weighing about 8,000 pounds with loader and tire ballast to a boomer 40 coming in about half of that. The boomer has 4wd and probably pulls as well as the 2wd 3930 did, plus the much lighter boomer doesn't rut up my clay nearly as much as the 3930 would. I used a cultivator set deep to fix ruts without any problems whereas the 3930 likely would have given me more ruts to fix.
I used to run a kicker baler with the 3930; it was beefy enough to do a good job; I wouldn't consider doing that with the boomer. Too light.
As an aside. Think twice, maybe 3 times, before jumping into hay on less than 20 acres. Lots of equipment and expense, turdly customers, weather issues, and the large expense of machinery new enough to not be a maintenance headache.