Hello all --
I will start shopping for a new CUT in the next few weeks, armed with the knowledge I've gained by browsing this forum for some time. Thanks for the resource!
I think I have a good idea of what will suit my needs best, but I was hoping to bounce my thoughts off of anybody who would be willing to chime in. I'd rather hear comments and alternate suggestions from actual users of these products first, before I go to the dealer. This is a really long post and I apologize for that, but I wanted to be as complete as possible.
First, my property and expected uses we have rural acreage in eastern (coastal) NC, with about an acre of "proper" grass around the house, and about 6 acres that I had "grrubbed and mulched" about 18 months ago. The land is essentially flat with a few ditches and other mild irregularities, but no slopes of any significance. The property is a former pine plantation so we have lots of pine trees that are fairly closely spaced and some hardwoods mixed in. I have been trying to keep up with the regrowth on this newly cleaned out 6 acres (grass where I'm lucky, but mostly small hardwoods and cane) using a Simplicity field and brush cutter (it's similar to the largest DR cutter), but the combination of slow forward speed, narrow width of cut and stress on my right shoulder from muscling the beast around just doesn't seem to suit a large area like this. This property is about two hours away from our primary home, so my time to work there is limited. I want to keep this area cut (several times per year) to encourage grassy growth over time and simply to keep it looking neat (and to reduce skeeters and snakes!). The "proper" grass I've been cutting with a 10-year old 42-inch Murray garden tractor. The newly cleared area is too irregular for the garden tractor and there is often too much deadfall for a finishing mower (at least I think so). I don't care too much about mowing speed, because the finish mowing is only about an acre right now, and the brush hogging goes at a snail's pace with my walk-behind and on the tractor will always be slow due to steering around trees.
I'll be using the tractor about 90% of the time for mowing and brush hogging, and the other 10% will be moving some dirt around (smoothing out the area that was grubbed and mulched, and fixing areas along the waterfront where storms have excavated some dirt from behind a rock revetment-seawall). After nor'easters and hurricanes I usually have some large rocks to push back into place along the seawall. I don't think l will need to do much of any driveway grading and definitely no snow removal! A backhoe would be useful once in a while but I can't justify the expense upfront until I have a major project.
My main limitation is footprint/weight I don't want to go wider than 4 feet for a rotary cutter or wider than 54 inches for a MMM because of the trees, and I want to be able to use my existing 5x10 trailer and 3,000 pound towing capacity vehicle (I can load up to 2,100 pounds on the trailer) for the rare instances I will need to transport the tractor (to the shop for repairs, and out of the flood zone before hurricanes).
I'll be shopping JD and Kubota. I think that the best fit would be a JD 2320 with a 54 inch OnRamp MMM, a 200CX FEL, an LX4 rotary cutter, and a front mounted blade (for smoothing and spreading dirt, and to push big rocks back into place along the seawall). I'm also very interested in a flail cutter say, 48 inches, like a Caroni 1200 which I might be able to use in all areas of the property instead of the MMM and RC. I really like the idea of a flail cutter to minimize thrown objects there are very few metal surprises left on the property but I do still have some exposed 4-inch rock along the edges of my access roads and some small granite rocks that get tossed up into the woods from the seawall during nor'easters. I plan to use the blade to collect these little rocks but I expect I'll hit some eventually. They kill my lawnmower and brush cutter blades, needless to say.
Here are some specific questions I have
1. Kubota options? Does Kubota have a 54 inch drive-over MMM, or just 60 inch plus? I really want to maximize maneuverability in the "nice" grass area. I didn'tsee a 54 inch Kubota option so that's one reason I've been leaning towards JD. The JD dealer network seems a little more extensive, they're all part of one company here (East Coast Equipment) with about 9 locations in the eastern part of the state, and there is one location about 30-35 minutes from my property so they would probably be better able to help me out for service.
2. Can a 2320 and front blade easily move a large (say between 2-3 feet every dimension) marl or granite rock (not pick it up, just slide it forward along relatively flat hard ground, and the rock is just sitting on the surface, not partially buried), or is another implement more appropriate? If I could otherwise justify a backhoe, that might work great but it's a lot of $$$ for once in a while use. I wouldn't plan to use the FEL for rocks this size.
3. Should I try a Caroni 1200 "in the woods" rather than a RC? I'm leaning toward getting the rotary cutter up front because I'm sure it will be capable of maintaining the areas I have cleared now, it would still do the job if I let an area grow too much between cuttings, and it would be useful along the edge of a small pond (backing up to the edge). As long as the extra length (tractor plus brush hog) isn't too tight between the trees when I need to turn around, I might be satisfied with that setup for the long term anyway.
4. What's my best option for pallet forks? I'd like to be able to use a pallet to carry some stuff around when that would be more convenient than the FEL, and I'm thinking that when a hurricane comes around, I could lift the RC onto a pallet and lift the pallet up on cinderblocks. Maybe the FEL bucket too, because I suspect that the tractor with bucket installed probably won't fit on my 120 inch trailer.
Well, if anybody has read this far, what do you think? Any and all comments or suggestions would be much appreciated.
Thanks!
Craig
I will start shopping for a new CUT in the next few weeks, armed with the knowledge I've gained by browsing this forum for some time. Thanks for the resource!
I think I have a good idea of what will suit my needs best, but I was hoping to bounce my thoughts off of anybody who would be willing to chime in. I'd rather hear comments and alternate suggestions from actual users of these products first, before I go to the dealer. This is a really long post and I apologize for that, but I wanted to be as complete as possible.
First, my property and expected uses we have rural acreage in eastern (coastal) NC, with about an acre of "proper" grass around the house, and about 6 acres that I had "grrubbed and mulched" about 18 months ago. The land is essentially flat with a few ditches and other mild irregularities, but no slopes of any significance. The property is a former pine plantation so we have lots of pine trees that are fairly closely spaced and some hardwoods mixed in. I have been trying to keep up with the regrowth on this newly cleaned out 6 acres (grass where I'm lucky, but mostly small hardwoods and cane) using a Simplicity field and brush cutter (it's similar to the largest DR cutter), but the combination of slow forward speed, narrow width of cut and stress on my right shoulder from muscling the beast around just doesn't seem to suit a large area like this. This property is about two hours away from our primary home, so my time to work there is limited. I want to keep this area cut (several times per year) to encourage grassy growth over time and simply to keep it looking neat (and to reduce skeeters and snakes!). The "proper" grass I've been cutting with a 10-year old 42-inch Murray garden tractor. The newly cleared area is too irregular for the garden tractor and there is often too much deadfall for a finishing mower (at least I think so). I don't care too much about mowing speed, because the finish mowing is only about an acre right now, and the brush hogging goes at a snail's pace with my walk-behind and on the tractor will always be slow due to steering around trees.
I'll be using the tractor about 90% of the time for mowing and brush hogging, and the other 10% will be moving some dirt around (smoothing out the area that was grubbed and mulched, and fixing areas along the waterfront where storms have excavated some dirt from behind a rock revetment-seawall). After nor'easters and hurricanes I usually have some large rocks to push back into place along the seawall. I don't think l will need to do much of any driveway grading and definitely no snow removal! A backhoe would be useful once in a while but I can't justify the expense upfront until I have a major project.
My main limitation is footprint/weight I don't want to go wider than 4 feet for a rotary cutter or wider than 54 inches for a MMM because of the trees, and I want to be able to use my existing 5x10 trailer and 3,000 pound towing capacity vehicle (I can load up to 2,100 pounds on the trailer) for the rare instances I will need to transport the tractor (to the shop for repairs, and out of the flood zone before hurricanes).
I'll be shopping JD and Kubota. I think that the best fit would be a JD 2320 with a 54 inch OnRamp MMM, a 200CX FEL, an LX4 rotary cutter, and a front mounted blade (for smoothing and spreading dirt, and to push big rocks back into place along the seawall). I'm also very interested in a flail cutter say, 48 inches, like a Caroni 1200 which I might be able to use in all areas of the property instead of the MMM and RC. I really like the idea of a flail cutter to minimize thrown objects there are very few metal surprises left on the property but I do still have some exposed 4-inch rock along the edges of my access roads and some small granite rocks that get tossed up into the woods from the seawall during nor'easters. I plan to use the blade to collect these little rocks but I expect I'll hit some eventually. They kill my lawnmower and brush cutter blades, needless to say.
Here are some specific questions I have
1. Kubota options? Does Kubota have a 54 inch drive-over MMM, or just 60 inch plus? I really want to maximize maneuverability in the "nice" grass area. I didn'tsee a 54 inch Kubota option so that's one reason I've been leaning towards JD. The JD dealer network seems a little more extensive, they're all part of one company here (East Coast Equipment) with about 9 locations in the eastern part of the state, and there is one location about 30-35 minutes from my property so they would probably be better able to help me out for service.
2. Can a 2320 and front blade easily move a large (say between 2-3 feet every dimension) marl or granite rock (not pick it up, just slide it forward along relatively flat hard ground, and the rock is just sitting on the surface, not partially buried), or is another implement more appropriate? If I could otherwise justify a backhoe, that might work great but it's a lot of $$$ for once in a while use. I wouldn't plan to use the FEL for rocks this size.
3. Should I try a Caroni 1200 "in the woods" rather than a RC? I'm leaning toward getting the rotary cutter up front because I'm sure it will be capable of maintaining the areas I have cleared now, it would still do the job if I let an area grow too much between cuttings, and it would be useful along the edge of a small pond (backing up to the edge). As long as the extra length (tractor plus brush hog) isn't too tight between the trees when I need to turn around, I might be satisfied with that setup for the long term anyway.
4. What's my best option for pallet forks? I'd like to be able to use a pallet to carry some stuff around when that would be more convenient than the FEL, and I'm thinking that when a hurricane comes around, I could lift the RC onto a pallet and lift the pallet up on cinderblocks. Maybe the FEL bucket too, because I suspect that the tractor with bucket installed probably won't fit on my 120 inch trailer.
Well, if anybody has read this far, what do you think? Any and all comments or suggestions would be much appreciated.
Thanks!
Craig
