Chris616
Silver Member
Please excuse the long post (my first on TBN), but more info will be useful since I'm asking for advice.
I've been using TBN and other Internet resources to research a solution to my mowing needs, so thought it time to ask for input from people with more experience (I've read many of the TBN threads with "slope" or "hill" in the title but have found very little discussion of one of the only two options that seem viable to me "ride-on brushcutters" (see below)).
Background - My wife and I have a ten acre property where we have lived for four years (mostly urban dwellers before that), of which I cut only about two acres of grass (but there are plenty of weeds and other vegetation - this is not a lawn). There are gardens, firewood stacks, compost bins, buildings, streams and other obstacles to mow around. I cut around the 25 trees in an orchard. There is no area large enough to have someone come in with big equipment to cut and bale as hay (I've asked the only local contractor). In our Mediterranean climate it usually rains little during the summer, so leaving the grass uncut, dry and three feet tall is a fire hazard (and unsightly, as far as my wife is concerned). The first year here I cut everything just once late in the summer, but the hay laying around caused mold underneath and didn't look very good. The next year I did that and my wife and I raked the hay by hand and piled it, providing some amusement for folks travelling by on the road, no doubt. This year my goal is to cut just often enough that the cut grass breaks down on its own. Little of the area that I cut is level and none of it is as smooth as an urban lawn. Most has a slope of 20 degrees or less, but it goes all the way up to 30 degrees.
In our first summer on the property I rented a walk-behind brushcutter and it worked well enough that I bought a 18 HP DR Power Equipment version. It is a beast that goes through anything that I've tried, but it weighs over twice what I do so it gets tiring to maneuver and it can't handle the steepest slopes safely. With its manual gear selection it's tedious for back and forth in the orchard and for changing speed as the ground roughness changes. With a 26 cut width it takes more than eight hours to mow that modest two acres (I'm fit and not taking it easy). Now that I've hit and cleared all the hidden obstacles I'm comfortable buying a more expensive tool that will be easier to use and hopefully faster.
It seems to me that the best solution from the perspective of operator safety and comfort is to separate the user from the tool, but it will be awhile before radio controlled technology like the following becomes inexpensive enough to be a viable option for personal use (the "cheaper" machine that appears at 2:30 in the following video is about US$45K). There are dozens of manufacturers producing RC mowers. How long before the prices drop? Hmmm.
Alamo Industrial: RidgeRunner™ [HD] - YouTube
The North American riding mower market seems to be dominated by zero-turns, "garden tractors", front mount mowers and compact utility tractors, none of which, from my research, can be safely operated on the kind of terrain that I have with the level of experience that I have (I have read that many of you experienced operators mow slopes this steep). My primary concern is to have a tool with which it is difficult to have a roll-over accident. So what are my options for sloped, "rough terrain" mowing (by which I mean not as smooth as an urban lawn) without truly specialized and expensive equipment such as a Kut Kwick or the dual-wheel Power Tracs, both of which would be overkill for 2 acres of mowing?
One option is a Ventrac 4500 with the dual wheel option using the tough cut mower. The manufacturer rates the tractor for slopes up to 30 degrees. The mower has a cutting width which is 2.5 times the tool I use now, although I recognize there is not necessarily a direct inverse correlation between cutting width and cutting time. Cost is about the only issue with the Ventrac (I really have to stop comparing the cost of mowing equipment to mass produced cars). It seems like a great deal of money just to mow a couple of acres (more than 10X the cost of my current equipment). There is a very new relatively local dealer, so with little experience servicing Ventracs. The Ventrac has (with more expense) the capability to do many other things beside cutting the grass (although I have another tool that does most of what I need already see below).
The only other mowing alternative to what I use now that makes sense to me is commonly available in Europe, Australia and Asia. To my knowledge there are no North American manufacturers, but there are a dozen or more European and Japanese builders of "ride-on brushcutters" At least three of these are available in North America now. If you've never seen a video of one of these before, you may judge them to be somewhat "toy-like" but they appear to be able to do the job and with their low centre of gravity handle slopes with greater stability than most alternatives available in North America. Here's a video of an AS-Motor (Germany) 4WD version of a ride-on brushcutter, which looks to be the best of the three that I've evaluated. With a 35" cut I'm unsure how much faster this machine would be than what I use now, though. Would those small wheels make for a backbreaking ride? At US$13,500 this single use tool is also not inexpensive, but it's a lot less than a Ventrac mowing solution.
AS 94 Sherpa 4WD ride-on mower in action - YouTube
There are no local dealers for any of the three North American available brands that I've found (AS-Motor, Canycom, Orec). I also can find almost no information on these machines from a North American perspective (dealer support, etc.). Are any North American TBN members using them and able to provide insight? I'm always somewhat leery of review websites where something gets only great reviews, but here is what folks in Australia have to say:
AS-Motor AS 94 Sherpa 4WD Reviews - ProductReview.com.au
As further background, we own a diesel powered UTV ("side-by-side") equipped with a winch and front-end hydraulics that allow us to swap out attachments (bucket, blade and pallet forks). When we bought it, just before moving here, we viewed it as a powered wheelbarrow, with no thoughts to using it for mowing. Along with a MUTS utility trailer it has been indispensable in our development of the property. I've considered but rejected towing a mower behind this machine as an option because it lacks the required maneuverability. In addition, after a bit of uncomfortable experimentation on slopes, we mostly confine our use of the UTV to the driveway, old logging roads that have little side-to-side slope and the flatter areas of grass.
Are there other mowing options that I haven't considered? I have thought about non-mowing options such as replanting the steep slopes with something that doesn't require mowing (more maintenance than mowing) and getting goats (not interested in tending livestock). There are no local contractors with suitable equipment.
If you've made it this far, thank you for your patience in reading through this and I welcome your input.
I've been using TBN and other Internet resources to research a solution to my mowing needs, so thought it time to ask for input from people with more experience (I've read many of the TBN threads with "slope" or "hill" in the title but have found very little discussion of one of the only two options that seem viable to me "ride-on brushcutters" (see below)).
Background - My wife and I have a ten acre property where we have lived for four years (mostly urban dwellers before that), of which I cut only about two acres of grass (but there are plenty of weeds and other vegetation - this is not a lawn). There are gardens, firewood stacks, compost bins, buildings, streams and other obstacles to mow around. I cut around the 25 trees in an orchard. There is no area large enough to have someone come in with big equipment to cut and bale as hay (I've asked the only local contractor). In our Mediterranean climate it usually rains little during the summer, so leaving the grass uncut, dry and three feet tall is a fire hazard (and unsightly, as far as my wife is concerned). The first year here I cut everything just once late in the summer, but the hay laying around caused mold underneath and didn't look very good. The next year I did that and my wife and I raked the hay by hand and piled it, providing some amusement for folks travelling by on the road, no doubt. This year my goal is to cut just often enough that the cut grass breaks down on its own. Little of the area that I cut is level and none of it is as smooth as an urban lawn. Most has a slope of 20 degrees or less, but it goes all the way up to 30 degrees.
In our first summer on the property I rented a walk-behind brushcutter and it worked well enough that I bought a 18 HP DR Power Equipment version. It is a beast that goes through anything that I've tried, but it weighs over twice what I do so it gets tiring to maneuver and it can't handle the steepest slopes safely. With its manual gear selection it's tedious for back and forth in the orchard and for changing speed as the ground roughness changes. With a 26 cut width it takes more than eight hours to mow that modest two acres (I'm fit and not taking it easy). Now that I've hit and cleared all the hidden obstacles I'm comfortable buying a more expensive tool that will be easier to use and hopefully faster.
It seems to me that the best solution from the perspective of operator safety and comfort is to separate the user from the tool, but it will be awhile before radio controlled technology like the following becomes inexpensive enough to be a viable option for personal use (the "cheaper" machine that appears at 2:30 in the following video is about US$45K). There are dozens of manufacturers producing RC mowers. How long before the prices drop? Hmmm.
Alamo Industrial: RidgeRunner™ [HD] - YouTube
The North American riding mower market seems to be dominated by zero-turns, "garden tractors", front mount mowers and compact utility tractors, none of which, from my research, can be safely operated on the kind of terrain that I have with the level of experience that I have (I have read that many of you experienced operators mow slopes this steep). My primary concern is to have a tool with which it is difficult to have a roll-over accident. So what are my options for sloped, "rough terrain" mowing (by which I mean not as smooth as an urban lawn) without truly specialized and expensive equipment such as a Kut Kwick or the dual-wheel Power Tracs, both of which would be overkill for 2 acres of mowing?
One option is a Ventrac 4500 with the dual wheel option using the tough cut mower. The manufacturer rates the tractor for slopes up to 30 degrees. The mower has a cutting width which is 2.5 times the tool I use now, although I recognize there is not necessarily a direct inverse correlation between cutting width and cutting time. Cost is about the only issue with the Ventrac (I really have to stop comparing the cost of mowing equipment to mass produced cars). It seems like a great deal of money just to mow a couple of acres (more than 10X the cost of my current equipment). There is a very new relatively local dealer, so with little experience servicing Ventracs. The Ventrac has (with more expense) the capability to do many other things beside cutting the grass (although I have another tool that does most of what I need already see below).
The only other mowing alternative to what I use now that makes sense to me is commonly available in Europe, Australia and Asia. To my knowledge there are no North American manufacturers, but there are a dozen or more European and Japanese builders of "ride-on brushcutters" At least three of these are available in North America now. If you've never seen a video of one of these before, you may judge them to be somewhat "toy-like" but they appear to be able to do the job and with their low centre of gravity handle slopes with greater stability than most alternatives available in North America. Here's a video of an AS-Motor (Germany) 4WD version of a ride-on brushcutter, which looks to be the best of the three that I've evaluated. With a 35" cut I'm unsure how much faster this machine would be than what I use now, though. Would those small wheels make for a backbreaking ride? At US$13,500 this single use tool is also not inexpensive, but it's a lot less than a Ventrac mowing solution.
AS 94 Sherpa 4WD ride-on mower in action - YouTube
There are no local dealers for any of the three North American available brands that I've found (AS-Motor, Canycom, Orec). I also can find almost no information on these machines from a North American perspective (dealer support, etc.). Are any North American TBN members using them and able to provide insight? I'm always somewhat leery of review websites where something gets only great reviews, but here is what folks in Australia have to say:
AS-Motor AS 94 Sherpa 4WD Reviews - ProductReview.com.au
As further background, we own a diesel powered UTV ("side-by-side") equipped with a winch and front-end hydraulics that allow us to swap out attachments (bucket, blade and pallet forks). When we bought it, just before moving here, we viewed it as a powered wheelbarrow, with no thoughts to using it for mowing. Along with a MUTS utility trailer it has been indispensable in our development of the property. I've considered but rejected towing a mower behind this machine as an option because it lacks the required maneuverability. In addition, after a bit of uncomfortable experimentation on slopes, we mostly confine our use of the UTV to the driveway, old logging roads that have little side-to-side slope and the flatter areas of grass.
Are there other mowing options that I haven't considered? I have thought about non-mowing options such as replanting the steep slopes with something that doesn't require mowing (more maintenance than mowing) and getting goats (not interested in tending livestock). There are no local contractors with suitable equipment.
If you've made it this far, thank you for your patience in reading through this and I welcome your input.
