A little help from the more informed

[fried1765]

As somebody else said on here, "the amount of work a tractor can do is determined by it's weight, how fast is does that work is determined by it's horsepower".

If you are going to put out a three acre garden to sell out of then you will be using your tractor every single day next summer in that garden. Get one sized for your garden work and a cheap rotary mower for the fields. Don't think you have to have an expensive heavy duty mower either. Those are for commercial use on the side of a road in every day use. A light duty mower will work fine for you as long as it has the stump jumper. I have a Howse 5-foot light duty mower that now sells for $895 at Kough Equipment in Farmington, Kentucky. Six foot is about a hundred more. Anything I have managed to push over with my 2500+ pound tractor it will chop up. I have hit half buried cross ties, rocks, stump, etc.. My little Kioti doesn't have enough horsepower to even break the shear bolt but it and the mower keep on going. If all you are mowing is 15 acres twice a year that is all you need. WHY spend the extra money.

I raised a small garden for years. When I retired I put out maybe a quarter acre at my mother's farm (I live on a one acre lot). I did this for four or five years until my wife quit her part time summer University job. It was three days a week four to six hours a day. The year I had the largest garden we took off on a two week vacation and I never got the grass back under control. BUT, I had enough to furnish my and my two daughter's households all the corn, green beans, okra, tomatoes, and cucumbers they could stand. This included canning and freezing. Just make sure you plant stuff so it doesn't all come in at once. If you do you may end up living by yourself after your wife leaves after the third twelve/sixteen hour day in a row picking and breaking green beans. After the first year I learned to plant five different varieties of corn that took from 59 to 110 days to mature. Makes life a lot easier and you will have market corn for months. But that first year....with it all coming in at once.....it was a nightmare.

If you do decide on the large garden I highly suggest you watch this guy, webcajun, on his youtube channel. His motto is, "I'm old, I'm crippled, and I'm lazy and this is how I do it". He has wide spaces between rows, picks sitting in a golf cart, and uses the correct equipment.

And this is the bible of Kentucky garden growers. It shouldn't be that much difference from where you are located. http://www2.ca.uky.edu/agcomm/pubs/id/id128/id128.pdf All the information you need for yields, planting times, planting amounts, etc. is there. Well for Kentucky anyway.

Some ideas in no particular order.

If you buy the tractor new get a front end loader. It will be MUCH cheaper if purchased with the tractor. A FEL makes a tractor into a versatile do it all helper. My little Kioti is used much, much more than the twice as large Ford because it has the loader.

A smaller tractor is much easier to use in a garden or other cultivating jobs. There is a reason IH sold all those Cub Farmalls for tobacco and garden cultivation in the fifties and sixties. A larger tractor will be faster, etc., but you will screw up some rows using it. Been there, done that!!

Get the HST if you are going to be using the tractor in a garden or mowing around obstacles.

Get the HST if you are going to do ground engaging jobs like moving dirt or gravel. Once you start changing directions every few seconds the HST will make life much easier.

Get the HST if your wife is going to use it.

Your wife will love the HST especially on a smaller tractor. Some weeks my wife starts and stops mine many more times than I do. She moves flower pots, potting soil, bird baths, flowers she has dug up, trash bags, and anything else she can get into the bucket. Eight year old granddaughter putted around the yard all summer with the bucket full of water watering the flowers. Had to put a few back in the ground after 55-gallons dumped on them but it taught her how to handle the machinery and kept her out of trouble otherwise.

Get four wheel drive. You will never regret it.

Forget the old Ford. I have spent hours on one as a teenager and younger. They are designed for row cropping. Which means they are designed for pulling ground engaging implements in a straight line across a large field. Use them for anything else and they are lacking.

After much serious thought and several beers I have decided that you need a 25 to 30 horsepower Kioti (my favorite), Kubota, Deere, or whatever. It must have a front end loader, tiller, one row cultivator, sub soiler, hiller, blade, and a five foot (25-hp) or six foot (30-hp) rotary mower. It MUST have a three range hydrostatic transmission. First for ground engaging, second for mowing, third for transport.

Also a 16'-18' trailer to move it about with.

And a pickup truck to pull trailer and haul all that produce to market.

And a shed to store it in.

MAN, I am having fun spending your money.

Before you buy I suggest you visit Metropolis Illinois and Little Tractor. They sell Kioti. A few years ago they had to stop putting prices on the Net because all the other dealers were complaining that people would shop a tractor locally then buy it online from Little and have it shipped cheaper than the local dealer.

Clear as mud isn't it.

Hope you have a wonderful day.

RSKY

P.S. I am on a 'weight limit' due to minor surgery. So I can't do anything except fold laundry, cook, and be a know-it-all on TBN. Thanks for giving me a problem to worry about for the day.

You are doing a GOOD job !!

 

[airbiscuit]

You will get lots of good and varied responses on TBN. I think a few trips to a dealership are in order just to look and learn. I think that the first decision to make is tractor frame size (not horsepower). That determines traction, power to the ground and oomph. John Deere is a good benchmark for frame sizes...

1025 R = subcompact - basically a garden tractor on steroids. Great for suburbia
2032R = Small Frame Compact Utility Tractor (CUT) Handy size for small acreage. Limited traction, limited ground clearance
3033R = Medium Frame CUT Just gosh darned handy. Size that comes to mind when you say CUT will do everything you need to do but take longer to mow
4044M = Large Frame CUT Now you're starting to get into real traction, real useable power, getting real work done

Try them all out and see what you think of them and imagine using them at your property.

I had a subcompact New Holland TC21 D. Used it to mow lawn and light loader work. I loved it and gave it to my son. He now has the coolest tractor in his sub division
Never had a small frame CUT but know people who do, but they don't do much taxing work with them. By the time you realize you don't have enough traction with them, you're in too deep.

I had a mid frame CUT - New Holland 1925. I loved that tractor. I could do anything I wanted with that tractor, except that some things took a little more time. I thought it was my last tractor until we got a big snowstorm with wet greasy snow. I got the job done, but not fast and not easy.

I now have a large frame CUT - New Holland T2310 - I am in heaven. What a difference a larger frame, more weight and taller tires make. Unbelievable how much easier the work now gets done.

Sooooooooo, a medium frame tractor will serve your needs, and you will have a big smile on your face. That might be your last tractor, but it might be your first tractor, and you will later buy a large frame tractor.

If you are lucky enough to get a large frame tractor within your budget, you will be over the moon.

You will use a loader more than anything else and wonder how you ever got along without it.

I would consider a tiller instead of a plow and a disc.

More things to consider:
New or used
Brand
R1 or R4 Tires
Hydro or Shuttle
Economy of Full Featured
How does it "feel"

Others may differ, but I say settle in on frame size first and go from there

 

[RSKY]

One other very important item I left out above if you do the garden. Make sure you measure the distance between the tires of your new tractor and space your rows accordingly. If will not always be conductive to using a one row cultivator if you plant on the standard 36" rows. It wasn't me on this one. But an acquaintance who purchased his cultivator a year or so before me at the same place I did. He gave me strict instructions on how he had screwed everything up and couldn't use his cultivator one year.

Also I checked a spreadsheet and the five types of corn I planted are Early Sunglow (59 days I believe), Bodacious, Kandy Korn, Peaches and Cream, and Honey Select Triple Sweet. Not in order of maturing. The last one, the Triple Sweet, was by far the best tasting and I was banned from buying any seed other than that. Everybody in my family liked it much better. I staggered the planting and had it coming in at about ten days to two weeks interval. Just about the time my wife would say 'thank goodness we are thru with the corn' she would come home and I would have half the bed of the truck full. THAT is the main reason I quit the large garden. Well, maybe the year I had five sixty foot long rows of Kentucky Wonder Green Beans. It got so bad that year that relatives wouldn't answer if they saw it was me calling.

Do you know how to tell if the corn is ready to pick?? Answer at end of this post.

And if you can find an old planter it can be used to mark off your rows. It doesn't have to work as a planter. Just be able to put fertilizer down and mark the rows at a standard width.

Also purchase some good hoes for grass control. You are going to need them.

You know your corn is ready to pick when you arrive at the garden one morning and the coons have ate 75% of your crop. It happens every year.

RAKY

 

[oosik]

RSKY - that coon story makes me laugh. Of everything we planted in the garden - the corn was never touched by local wildlife. Bush beans - deer, potatoes - pocket gophers, carrots - pocket gopher, apples - dam near everything, kohlrabi - rabbits. And the one that made my wife go stark raving mad - the chipmunks would get into her strawberries and eat them when they were only half ripe.

 

[WM75Guy]

The others have given you some sound advice. Consider your tasks and the frequency and percentage of time devoted to each. Will it be a one time task or every day task? If time is not a major issue then don't rule out a smaller machine. A smaller tractor is more agile but may take longer to do some tasks like mowing pasture or moving piles of dirt.

I have 14 acres, 2 get mown with the ZTR, the rest with a tractor. Mowing the pastures with the 6' cutter is an easy 2 day task. With a good set of headphones and an MP3 player it is a relaxing time listening to music. During the summer I do it late in the evening into the night so it is not so hot. If you are only going to mow the pastures twice a year then a 25-30 HP tractor with a 5' cutter would be an option that I wouldn't rule out.

If your wife is going to use the tractor I would recommend the HST. The TC40DA with HST is now the wife's tractor and she uses it all the time. I bought the TC40DA used from a dealer that also does auctions. The Boomer 8N is my tractor that I use for mowing since it does not have an FEL, easier to mow in trees. I bought it new from the local NH dealer.

I like R4s for general use. Since we drive through the yard around the house and outbuildings the R4s don't tear up the ground as much when turning. Our land is mostly sand so getting stuck is not a problem. It has only happened twice in 10 years, once after a heavy rain and the other due to a broken water line I found when mowing. R1s wouldn't have helped but a second tractor and tow strap did great.

New is nice but I wouldn't rule out a good used machine. I run out of weight before HP when doing dirt work. The tractor stops with the wheels just spinning and digging ruts. Also the lifting weight of the FEL at the pins will be a big factor on my next purchase. I can lift 1500# with the TC so to lift pallets with 2000# of bedding pellets means removing part of the load by hand before moving it.

Good luck in your search. Take your time and develop a reasonable budget, visit the dealers often, drink lots of their coffee, and drive their tractors multiple times. Find one that is comfortable to you both and fits your budget. Take road trips to look at used machines, that is part of the fun. I have found if you take a trailer and cash with you that shows the seller you are serious and they tend to bargain more. Be sure and include your wife in the hunt. My wife was the one that told me to buy the Boomer 8N, she thought it was cute.

 

[jeff9366]

Here is an overview of tractor implements authored by LSU Ag Center:

http://www.lsuagcenter.com/~/media/...aa214276e14dacb/pub2917tractorimplements1.pdf

 

[RSKY]

Yes, I forgot loader lift capacity. That was the deciding factor in Kioti over Kubota on my purchase in 2011. The Kioti would lift nearly 1100 pounds and the Kubota of the same horsepower would only lift 800. That and price made up my mind.

RSKY

 

[RSKY]

RSKY - that coon story makes me laugh. Of everything we planted in the garden - the corn was never touched by local wildlife. Bush beans - deer, potatoes - pocket gophers, carrots - pocket gopher, apples - dam near everything, kohlrabi - rabbits. And the one that made my wife go stark raving mad - the chipmunks would get into her strawberries and eat them when they were only half ripe.

My favorite vegetable is purple hull peas. Several years ago I had twelve rows planted at my mother's farm. Best stand I had ever had and the vines were loaded down with peas. Now these rows were more than sixty feet long so you can imagine how many there were. We picked green beans on a Monday and decided that Wednesday would be the pea picking day because we would spend all day Tuesday canning the beans. Arrived at the garden Wednesday morning before the dew was off and got enough peas to fill a pan for our lunch. We could see the tracks were the deer had walked down the rows having a feast. We had bushels of peas hanging on the vines and they were all gone. That happened every time we got ready to pick. So the next year I had to move the pea patch to the oldest daughter's house in another county. Their dog kept the deer out.

RSKY

 

[DieselBound]

LOTS of sage advice here.

In general, if you DO put a lot of thought into things you'll likely end up just fine. Keep in mind, however, that all plans tend to change.

I ran six years on 40 acres of horribly overgrown land. I couldn't even begin to say what I've been through here. My "plan" was never to have been spending all the time that I'd spent; but, had I gotten larger equipment to begin with I'd have likely done a LOT of really stupid stuff, totally misjudged what I had (when the land is completely covered in brush it's VERY hard to know what's underneath!). My B7800, while small-framed, has been indestructible. 30hp does pretty good: 23hp at the PTO has managed to run a light-duty 5' bush hog pretty well- and mind you that I've done much more than just "light duty" work! It has climbed over brush (doing stuff that most people would freak out at), moved around huge tree trunks (lots of wood debris- dealing with it became MUCH easier with a tooth bar on the bucket!), have turned a good 10 acres of brush in to pasture/grass, always, though sometimes going slowly, doing it all. Loader lift capacity is what finally prompted me to go bigger. I recently acquired a 5' rototiller for a very small garden plot (I'd rented a walk-behind, rear tine, unit and swore that I'd never to that again!). The B7800 seems to run it just fine. I'd say that once you've got any sod busted up that running a tiller on a semi-regular basis won't really require any big tractor: take a look at all those small, grey market tractors with tillers that seem to pop up all over the place- obviously these machines had been used quite extensively.

HST. As you age you'll appreciate it. (and, as someone else mentioned, your wife will be more apt to be able to operate it- I had to have my wife operate our NX5510 to help unstick an excavator, the HST was a godsend).

Loader. Not sure if a tractor is really a tractor without one Loader should have SSQA (these seem to be very good at prying open your wallet! :laughing.

Tires... this one takes the most to figure. Really have to understand your ground. R4s are good for stability and loader work; they're marginal for traction on wet ground. With a heavy tractor it's a bit less important. Get the rear tires ballasted. It took a couple years with my B7800 before I did that and I really wanted to slap myself for not knowing to do this at the beginning (well, the sales guy mentioned it, but I didn't comprehend it at the time). After getting ballast in the B7800's rears I was able to mow in places that I could only mow in 4wd!

4wd. 4wd does a lot to make up for extra loads on the tractor. Any loader work will tend to leverage the tractor such that your rear wheels start to be less effective traction-wise. Of course, any dirt work is going to be improved with 4wd. General rule of thumb is to run in 2wd and when you start sensing that you're struggling to get traction you shift into 4wd and then get the heck out of that situation!

Rear hydraulic remotes. My B7800 has nothing. Top of my list when I got a new tractor was (in addition to SSQA) several rear remotes. My NX5510 had three sets (and I've had them all in use at one time). Hydraulically operated top link is far away the cat's meow.

I bought a UTV (Polaris Brutus- can't say I recommend these things, but I got it at a good price and have put it to more work than I'd first imagined) a couple years back. I cannot over-emphasize the utility in one of these. Shuffling people (side-by-side) and tools, dragging a small trailer around, there's lots of stuff that they can do that are a lot more difficult to do with a tractor alone. Point here is that if you dump a ton of money into a big, new tractor you might find that you badly need other tools as well.

Not sure if the L2501 Kubota would be enough, but (based on what an utter workhorse my B7800 has been) I wouldn't readily dismiss it. Long-term I'd think, unless you're going to be doing a lot of heavy lifting (loader work) a 40hp machine ought to be able to handle most everything. Note that one will never really have enough; and when one finds things that one cannot do with one's current equipment one should contemplate renting (I do this; excavators, skid steers etc.); having larger and more complicated machines means costlier repairs and higher operating costs (yes, things can get done faster, but there IS a trade-off). Best value is with something that you use a lot.

 

[RSKY]

Looks like we overloaded OzarkJoe with too much information. He is probably sitting in the dark blubbering and rereading all our contradictory information!

RSKY