Dr G
Member
Hello,
This is my first post. And this would be my first ever tractor purchase. I am hoping to get some advice on my selection. I've read threads like this before, and responders often ask for more detail on proposed use. So, I'll try to be descriptive, at the risk of being verbose 8^)
We recently moved to Paso Robles, CA. We have purchased a 10-acre parcel about 8 miles out of town. We are in the planning phase and will build our house on the parcel. Since the parcel is undeveloped there will be a lot of work required to get it ready for the home build. And then a lot of maintenance work to the property when we live there. I'll give more detail about my plan below.
I have chosen Kubota because there is a very good dealer here in town (C&N Tractor). Very friendly and knowledgeable staff. They also sell Stihl products and I have purchased some chainsaws there. The only other tractor dealer in town worth noting is John Deere. But they seem geared to bigger tractors and I do not get a real warm fuzzy about the dealer, though I have no issue with the equipment. Every person I know in this area who has a small tractor has a Kubota.
Let me list some of the things that I think a tractor may be helpful with:
- Cutting Grass and Brush. We are in fire country, so brush clearing is a must. Out of our 10 acres, at least 2 acres should be kept cut short or tilled. Defensible area around the house and along the road at a minimum. Some of this terrain is probably too steep for a tractor, not sure (see pics below).
- PTO Wood Chipper. Our property is an old Walnut grove. The trees are not in great shape as they are no longer irrigated. We do not plan on removing them all, but certainly those in the area that will be graded need to be removed. We've started trimming the branches of some of them and the wood piles up fast! We can't burn it. We could take it to the dump, but that will take time and get expensive. So we thought to chip it up so we can use it as mulch to keep the weeds down. The larger pieces we will save for a wood fired pizza oven or maybe to sell as firewood. We looked at self-powered chippers, but I figure if we had a tractor then powering one off the PTO might be better.
- Tree Trunk Removal - When the branches are trimmed off the walnut trees, then the trunks will have to be pulled out of the ground. I do not know if a tractor can do this, or if we have to rent something bigger. But if a tractor could do it that would be helpful.
- Digging Post Holes. We will need to put up deer fencing around our landscaped area. We may also put up a livestock fence around a larger portion of the property for some goats. So a lot of fence post holes to dig. I see there are post hole diggers that attach to the back of a tractor. That could be useful.
- Road maintenance. We will have a driveway that is partly paved (anything over 12% by fire code) and partly gravel. This will require occasional addition of gravel which then has to be spread around and evened out. Also, at the low end of the property where it abuts the road, the earth tends to move a little each winter and cover the road a bit. So this has to be continually pushed back. I started doing some of it with a shovel, but there is no way I can do it all. It's about 1/4-mile total.
- Light Grading - This is a pretty open-ended question. Our home construction and driveway project involve about 1.5 acres of soil disturbance. Hiring someone to do all the grading will be very expensive. So, the more we can do ourselves the better. For sure we will have to rent equipment at some point (an excavator and a loader probably). But anything we could do with a tractor would help, especially in the early stages. We have an experienced contractor friend who will help us with this. It would be nice to carve out a few primitive dirt trails on the site, just to get around. The back hoes that attach to a tractor don't seem too highly regarded. But as long as I am not in a hurry I do wonder if one might be useful for making trails and creating flat spots for equipment, water tanks, sheds, vegetable beds etc.
- Fork Lift - I have seen an attachment that allows a tractor to act as a fork lift. This could be very handy during the home construction phase, as frequently things are delivered on large trucks with no provision for off-loading. Worse, yet, many of these trucks may not be able to go up our road, as there is no place to turn around. So I might have to offload the delivery truck a mile down the road at the nearest intersection and put it on my own trailer to bring it up the house. Renting a real fork lift for these instances would be a PIA. I realize a tractor is a poor substitute for a real fork lift, but I'm thinking it's a lot better than nothing.
For the things we want to do (which is not farming) I see a tractor as sort of a Jack of All Trades, Master of None type of deal. We're thinking of it as an investment, in that it might allow us to do things ourselves instead of having to hire someone. So that it ends up paying for itself so to speak. We have the luxury of time; in that we would not have to hurry anything we're doing with the tractor in those instances where is not the ideal choice for the task at hand.
Being that our lot is sloped, roll-over is a big concern. Thus I would like to keep the tractor low and wide, as much as possible. This is hill country, and as I drive around I see a lot of parcels that have been disc'd, and are quite steep to my eye. I have driven our truck around on our property and it does fine, though I am not sure how that compares to a tractor. I have sort of narrowed my selection down to the Kubota L3901, L4701 and MX4800. If anyone has an opinion or advice, I am all ears. Even if you do not think I should even get a tractor for my needs, I will listen.
The site won't let me post links to my pictures yet, so I will do that shortly.
Thanks - Gustave
This is my first post. And this would be my first ever tractor purchase. I am hoping to get some advice on my selection. I've read threads like this before, and responders often ask for more detail on proposed use. So, I'll try to be descriptive, at the risk of being verbose 8^)
We recently moved to Paso Robles, CA. We have purchased a 10-acre parcel about 8 miles out of town. We are in the planning phase and will build our house on the parcel. Since the parcel is undeveloped there will be a lot of work required to get it ready for the home build. And then a lot of maintenance work to the property when we live there. I'll give more detail about my plan below.
I have chosen Kubota because there is a very good dealer here in town (C&N Tractor). Very friendly and knowledgeable staff. They also sell Stihl products and I have purchased some chainsaws there. The only other tractor dealer in town worth noting is John Deere. But they seem geared to bigger tractors and I do not get a real warm fuzzy about the dealer, though I have no issue with the equipment. Every person I know in this area who has a small tractor has a Kubota.
Let me list some of the things that I think a tractor may be helpful with:
- Cutting Grass and Brush. We are in fire country, so brush clearing is a must. Out of our 10 acres, at least 2 acres should be kept cut short or tilled. Defensible area around the house and along the road at a minimum. Some of this terrain is probably too steep for a tractor, not sure (see pics below).
- PTO Wood Chipper. Our property is an old Walnut grove. The trees are not in great shape as they are no longer irrigated. We do not plan on removing them all, but certainly those in the area that will be graded need to be removed. We've started trimming the branches of some of them and the wood piles up fast! We can't burn it. We could take it to the dump, but that will take time and get expensive. So we thought to chip it up so we can use it as mulch to keep the weeds down. The larger pieces we will save for a wood fired pizza oven or maybe to sell as firewood. We looked at self-powered chippers, but I figure if we had a tractor then powering one off the PTO might be better.
- Tree Trunk Removal - When the branches are trimmed off the walnut trees, then the trunks will have to be pulled out of the ground. I do not know if a tractor can do this, or if we have to rent something bigger. But if a tractor could do it that would be helpful.
- Digging Post Holes. We will need to put up deer fencing around our landscaped area. We may also put up a livestock fence around a larger portion of the property for some goats. So a lot of fence post holes to dig. I see there are post hole diggers that attach to the back of a tractor. That could be useful.
- Road maintenance. We will have a driveway that is partly paved (anything over 12% by fire code) and partly gravel. This will require occasional addition of gravel which then has to be spread around and evened out. Also, at the low end of the property where it abuts the road, the earth tends to move a little each winter and cover the road a bit. So this has to be continually pushed back. I started doing some of it with a shovel, but there is no way I can do it all. It's about 1/4-mile total.
- Light Grading - This is a pretty open-ended question. Our home construction and driveway project involve about 1.5 acres of soil disturbance. Hiring someone to do all the grading will be very expensive. So, the more we can do ourselves the better. For sure we will have to rent equipment at some point (an excavator and a loader probably). But anything we could do with a tractor would help, especially in the early stages. We have an experienced contractor friend who will help us with this. It would be nice to carve out a few primitive dirt trails on the site, just to get around. The back hoes that attach to a tractor don't seem too highly regarded. But as long as I am not in a hurry I do wonder if one might be useful for making trails and creating flat spots for equipment, water tanks, sheds, vegetable beds etc.
- Fork Lift - I have seen an attachment that allows a tractor to act as a fork lift. This could be very handy during the home construction phase, as frequently things are delivered on large trucks with no provision for off-loading. Worse, yet, many of these trucks may not be able to go up our road, as there is no place to turn around. So I might have to offload the delivery truck a mile down the road at the nearest intersection and put it on my own trailer to bring it up the house. Renting a real fork lift for these instances would be a PIA. I realize a tractor is a poor substitute for a real fork lift, but I'm thinking it's a lot better than nothing.
For the things we want to do (which is not farming) I see a tractor as sort of a Jack of All Trades, Master of None type of deal. We're thinking of it as an investment, in that it might allow us to do things ourselves instead of having to hire someone. So that it ends up paying for itself so to speak. We have the luxury of time; in that we would not have to hurry anything we're doing with the tractor in those instances where is not the ideal choice for the task at hand.
Being that our lot is sloped, roll-over is a big concern. Thus I would like to keep the tractor low and wide, as much as possible. This is hill country, and as I drive around I see a lot of parcels that have been disc'd, and are quite steep to my eye. I have driven our truck around on our property and it does fine, though I am not sure how that compares to a tractor. I have sort of narrowed my selection down to the Kubota L3901, L4701 and MX4800. If anyone has an opinion or advice, I am all ears. Even if you do not think I should even get a tractor for my needs, I will listen.
The site won't let me post links to my pictures yet, so I will do that shortly.
Thanks - Gustave
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