Are disc and rotary mowers the same thing?

[sleepyhollow]

Hi Folks,

You'll have to pardon my ignorance here. While reading several posts on TBN it seemed as though there was a difference between the two.

I always thought that disc and rotary meant the same thing, a blade spinning on a vertical shaft relative to the ground. Can someone set me straight? Thanks,
Sleepyhollow

 

[Slamfire]

No they are not the same. A rotary mower is like a giant lawn mower with a blade that spins on a pivot and two arms sticking out to chop up the vegatation being mowed. The disc mower is a series of disks with sharpened edges mounted on a bar similar to the bar on a sickle mower. Instead of the shuttle motion of the sickle cutter the discs spin.

 

[cowboydoc]

Ditto what slamfire said. The disc mower is made up of drums that have a couple 4-6" blades on the sides. The drum spins and the forage is cut numerous times. You get a cleaner cut and it is only cut ONE time. Then it goes out the back either on the ground or into a crimper. With a rotary mower you often get the forage cut more than once as the hay is cut, hangs up in the deck and then falls down between the spinning blades.

 

[rdam]

I'm sure Cowboydoc will clarify. I think the "disc" cutters are used by those who intend to bale the hay. A rotary cutter or "Bush Hog" sort of "mulches" the grass/hay leaving it unsuitable for baling....I think. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

By the way. What exactly is the complete process for baling.
1. Cut (disc mower)
2. Tedder? fluffer?flipper???? to dry it?
3. Use an unknown type implement to "make rows"
4. Bale

I'm pretty sure of #1 and #4... #2 and #3 have me perplexed.

 

[RobS]

I'll take a stab at this with the following warning: I have no experience, only have watched a really good kids video on farming ("Let's Go To The Farm", put out by the Vermont Story Works - great video if it's still available).

Hay can be cut, dried and baled or chopped and stored as haylage. Different equipment for each.

Depends on time of year and the needs of the farm. For baling, it needs to be cut, left to dry, raked then baled. To shorten dry time though, it can be cut and conditioned with a mower/conditioner (moco, per CowboyDoc). The conditioner has rollers that crush the hay then leaves it in windrows so the tedder is used to spread it out for drying, then it's raked and baled. For haylage, it could be picked up wet or just cut and shot into a forage wagon.

There are probably other variations but someone with more than kids video experience will have to chime in /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Bird]

That sounds about right to me, Rob. All my hay cutting was done with a 9' mower/conditioner. The back end had an adjustment so you could close it in to leave windrows or open it to spread the discharge; never used it any way except adjusted to make the narrowest windrows possible. And I've never used a tedder. A neighbor had one, but only used it to scatter hay to dry in very unusual circumstances, such as rain right after cutting and before baling. Now we could, and on a few rare occasions did, simply bale the existing windrows after drying without raking, but we normally used a side discharge rake to combine 3 windrows into one; i.e., left one in the middle and rolled one on either side onto the middle one. We did that because it was faster and used less fuel to run a smaller tractor to pull the rake (normally used a Super H, but used my B7100 one day when the Super H broke down) and that way didn't have to travel as far or as long with the big tractor and baler.

 

[Phred]

The other guys have done a good job of explaining, but sometimes a picture is worth.......

This is a shot of mu disc mower. Its 8' and discs are basically metal plates with metal knives bolted on the two sides. Half the discs spin one way the other half spin in the oposite direction.

Fred

 

[Phred]

In the last picture I lifted up half the cover so you could see the discs. Normally the cover is down and catches anything that the mower might throw. The bar drags along the ground and has a set of skid shoes on the bottom that ware.

These mowers, like the others said, only cut the grass off at the ground and then leave it for latter baling. It does not chop it up like a rotary cutter would.

It requires a little bit bigger tractor than a rotary due to the fact that you usually lift it up for travel as shown in the attachment.

Fred

 

[RobS]

You're absolutely right Fred, a picture is worth...

That makes it clear as a bell. Thanks /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Phred]

After cutting the grass looks like this....

This is after only cutting one path not the whole field yet.