30HP vs 26HP 60" bush hog?

[HayFarmer]

I bush hog and finish mow with a Ford 33hp 2810. It will cut anything with the five foot rotary cutter. Have a six foot estate mower for the lawn. R3 tires to not ruin the lawn. Not a compact, an actual farm tractor, just a small one. My wedding and raking tractor, too.

 

[Mudfarmer]

I run a four-foot bush hog on my B2650. In heavy grass, at full power/full RPMs it doesn't bog down the engine as long as I have it set at about six inches. I find ground speed is not determined by the tractor, but by the mower. Despite having brand new blades on the mower, if I drive above low-range fourth gear, the grass gets knocked over more than mowed especially when cornering. Having run a five-foot mower in the past on my old Ford 1700, I suspect I could use that on the Kubota, but the five-foot never seemed much faster getting the job done than the four-foot (which are cheaper and more available). All that being said, I usually mow with my JD 3005 since it is wider and heavier than either of my B series Kubotas. I mow through heavy grass about 10 acres once a year. Of course the "brush hog" works way better on brush than on grass.

 

[LD1]

I run a four-foot bush hog on my B2650. In heavy grass, at full power/full RPMs it doesn't bog down the engine as long as I have it set at about six inches. I find ground speed is not determined by the tractor, but by the mower. Despite having brand new blades on the mower, if I drive above low-range fourth gear, the grass gets knocked over more than mowed especially when cornering. Having run a five-foot mower in the past on my old Ford 1700, I suspect I could use that on the Kubota, but the five-foot never seemed much faster getting the job done than the four-foot (which are cheaper and more available). All that being said, I usually mow with my JD 3005 since it is wider and heavier than either of my B series Kubotas. I mow through heavy grass about 10 acres once a year. Of course the "brush hog" works way better on brush than on grass.

Around here 4' mowers are more scarce and command more $$$.

5' mowers have been around as long as dirt, and seems the size everyone used on the old fords and little masseys. Can usually pick them up for a song. They aint pretty at that price but they function. The 4' seem to be a much narrower market geared toward SCUT's....and people willing to pay more to tend to their little food plot or what not

 

[Mudfarmer]

LDI:

Perhaps regional differences. Referring to new prices. Admittedly the old 5-footer I had came with a Ford NAA that my grandfather bought in the 1970s.

 

[whitetiger]

Agreed - I would keep both. Sounds like they are non-DEF. If you are buying a new 25+ hp tractor, you would be getting into DEF, which would only be a continuous headache, especially as much use as you would give it. As pointed out earlier, HP determines your rate of cutting, either in width or speed. Small changes are just not worth the trouble of changing your setup.

If you have a cooling issue, be sure to try cleaning the radiator. I have encountered lots of dirt in mine even though they have debris screens. If you are using a rotary cutter, make sure it is properly adjusted so the rear is slightly higher than the front. I used a 60" cutter on my Kubota 20 hp PTO tractor and 72" cutter on my Kubota 30 hp PTO tractor. The smaller would overheat in continuous heavy material, but I never thought about checking for radiator cleanliness before selling it.

What sounds like a time issue is 13 acres of possible heavy cutting. Instead of buying a replacement tractor, maybe your compromise is hiring most or all of it to be shredded, at least once a year.

If your grounds are rough and weed-infested, maybe solve that problem and maintain it that way afterwards?

DEF or Diesel Exhaust Fluid is used only on over 75 HP units.
DPF or Diesel Particulate Filter is used on 25 HP and up units

 

[Bobrown14]

We got a big tractor to do tractoring. Cutting brush or hay is a big tractor job.

We got a zero turn to cut grass. A big tractor is terrible at cutting grass even with a rotary cutter because ruts happen.

I can cut grass with the tractor and my rotary cutter after the ground gets hard enough that's usually rare the ground gets that hard. Then when the ground is hard its usually hot enough the grass dont grow. Problems solved.

 

[D.Vance]

Retired engineer and kubota tractor owner. Pto HP is what is important in powering most implements. 540 rpm pto is going to give you 9.726 ftlbs of torque for each HP. Moderate growth, under knee high, brush hogging will require 4-5 hp for each foot of cut at 3 mph. You will find exceptions to this but these are good average numbers. Each horse power can give you 125 lbs of thrust at 3 mph. So up hill performance depends how much weight you are lugging, and what the percentage of grade you are climbing.

 

[D.Vance]

I have a B2910 it has 30HP and 22HP at the PTO, I also have a B2650 that has 26HP and 19.5 HP at the PTO

Would it be fair to say that a 60" bush hog would run equally on both tractors? One tractor has more engine HP so how would that relate to the PTO or would it since there is only 2HP difference between the two.

I'm looking to get rid of the B2910, i have not tried the bush hog on the B2650 as it is my lawn mower and would be a pain to take off the mower deck any time i wanted to bush hog.

I have to run the B2910 with the front end loader on or else the front end is to light. The B2650 would be the same way so that extra weight might affect the smaller 26HP.

The B2910 needs a few repairs so i am trying to decide if i should repair it and just keep both tractors for the convenience factor or trade both in on a newer 33HP B series but then i would have to remove the mower deck any time i wanted to bush hog so that would be a pain.

Both tractors are paid for.

I mow the yard weekly with the front end loader off my yard is 3 acres and what i bush hog is 13 acres twice a year and is mostly flat.

I definitely need a tractor to remove snow, bush hog, road maintenance as my road is a 1 mile long almost.

What would you guys do?

I have owned 4 kubota tractors. BX2200, B2710, B3350, and LX 3310. The first two predated emissions, the last two were tier 4 with EGR and DPF. The last two have given far more trouble than the first two. I am a retired engineer and know how to live with emissions. I would repair the B2910 if you can answer this question; can I trust it to meet you needs after spending the time and money to repair. New tractors of 25 gross hp or more will have tier 4 emissions. These don’t like low rpm operation, most require 80 to 90 percent of rated rpm 90 percent of the time. Translation get the hot and work them hard.

 

[LD1]

Retired engineer and kubota tractor owner. Pto HP is what is important in powering most implements. 540 rpm pto is going to give you 9.726 ftlbs of torque for each HP. Moderate growth, under knee high, brush hogging will require 4-5 hp for each foot of cut at 3 mph. You will find exceptions to this but these are good average numbers. Each horse power can give you 125 lbs of thrust at 3 mph. So up hill performance depends how much weight you are lugging, and what the percentage of grade you are climbing.

I would say 5hp per ft for knee to waist high at at 5-6 mph is closer to realistic. But there are too many variables to account for. Just mow, if the engine RPM's start dropping, either slow down or cut higher

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

OP,

If your field that is getting cut once or twice a year is very rough, like you described, I wouldn't be concerned with ground speed while cutting. You're sure as H*LL not going to be mowing at 5 or 6 mph. More like 2 to 3 mph (if you're lucky).

5 pto hp per foot of cutter will be just fine in almost all instances. I use a 6' cutter on 32 pto hp and I almost never slow down for load on the cutter. My ground speed is almost always regulated by how rough the field is. I'm cutting fields that don't belong to me, and that don't get cut frequently. Most of them are quite rough to travel over. Some of them go 5 or 6 years between getting cut. I don't have any issues at all with overheating due to the cutter's load on the engine.

However,

The chaff and whatnot that I kick up into the air while mowing wreaks havoc on my coolers and radiator. Depending on how much fluffy junk (seed heads, pollen, blossoms, etc) that are present, I may have to stop several times during a cutting job and blow out my radiator and coolers. This is not a "scut/cut" problem. This is a modern radiator problem. Even the giant "ag tractors" being made today use radiator core and fin sizes that are much denser than the old tractors of yesteryear. Old tractors (and old vehicles) used to have radiators that were much larger in size, but had core and fin arrangements that were much less dense. "They" (enter name of ALL brands of tractors and vehicles here) figured out many years ago that if they made the core and fin rows denser, as in closer together, they could get more cooling in a smaller package. So the same radiator that used to be 5 feet tall and 4 feet across, can now be 3 feet tall and 2 feet across.

No matter what tractor you end up with, you're going to have to stop sooner or later and blow out your radiator and coolers. Doesn't matter what color your tractor is, or how many hp it has. If those coolers get blocked up, you're going to start getting hot.

This is me cutting a field with heavy dense weeds that were taller than my tractor cab (8 feet) in some places, and taller than my hood in all places. I was literally pushing down a wall of weeds with the loader that were so thick, you couldn't see through them. My ground speed was slow right here, because I couldn't even see the ground, and was playing "blind man's bluff" with the bucket on my FEL. I'd say my ground speed was "a quick walk" as speed was concerned.

I'm taking full width passes with the cutter.

Only issue with heating up, was these fluffy little bastages (and similar) getting packed into my grill and radiator/coolers.

With enough of these little satanic fluff balls flying around, I don't care what tractor color or hp you have. They will find your radiator, and they will choke it's air supply off.