Mowing 2 acres

milkman · May 3, 2009

mn voyageur, sure wish you lived closer to me, I have a 40in. mower that I bought with my 735 that I don't use since I got my BX. I also have the mowing sulky and would like to trade them for a sickle. Joel is supposed to be keeping an eye out for a used sickle so we can work up a trade.

oldmech · May 3, 2009

Hi! I think for two acres you need 40 in. mower and sulky.This is the best for you.
But For FUN I make a plan for PULL a finish mower from a two wheels tractor. .
So you have a mower and a sulky in same time.
You need a 1 3/8 PTO adapter. You must verify ROTATION Mower vs BCS. If you can find a 1000rpm mower.
60 in. mower can need 20 HP engine. but with a Lower ground speed can work. Good Luck! Oldmech

mn_voyageur · May 3, 2009

Correct me, if I am wrong, but most of the finish mowers that I have seen are 4 wheeled. So, the tractor is not supporting anything.

Additionally, I have seen several 60" finishing decks that claim to need only a 15 HP tractor.

I still am looking at the 38" deck, primarily to cut the ditch bank along the state road. The ditch is easy to walk along, just a bit too steep to drive a CUT.

Is there a trick to measuring the angle of a ditch bank? Coach Doheny was my Geometry and Trig teacher in high school. I could brush off the cobwebs and calculate the complementary angle of a right triangle.

(Math was great, especially during football season!)

2manyrocks · May 3, 2009

Fast and easy way to measure the angle of the ditch is to take a digital level and put it on top of a 2x4x8 laying on the ditch bank.

More difficult way is to pick a low reference point and a high reference point and then measure the difference in height over the distance between the two points and then do the calculations. It would be the same as calculating the rise/run of a roof and then figuring the angle.

mn_voyageur · May 3, 2009

When you mentioned the digital level on a 2x4, I remembered that I have a dial protractor.

Maybe I should keep my woodworking and garden tools together.

2manyrocks · May 4, 2009

The protactor should work with no problem.

I pulled out my acreage chart because I started wondering how long it would take to cut 2 acres with a 30" deck. If you assume 3 mph and the full cut each time, it's slightly over 2 hours, but slowing down for the real world and having to overlap each pass, I'm guessing closer to 2 1/2 hours. Having to slow down for tall grass will eat up more time.

A 38 inch deck--maybe reduce it by 20-30 minutes roughly estimated.

js5020 · May 4, 2009

Haha,,, I just ran some numbers on this,,, paper calculations came out to .75 acres per hour @ 3mph and a 30" deck,, I was interested in the miles walked per acre and came up with 3.3 miles per acre. I cut the entire place (close to 4 acres) every now and then just for the heck of it, and you wont see me out walkin the roads for exercise.

mn_voyageur · May 5, 2009

How did you calculate the miles walked?

js5020 · May 5, 2009

Actually I found a site that had the distances walked when the oldtimers used horse plows and they stated a man walked 9.9 miles an acre using a 10" bottom so divided by 3, course both assume a full cut which I know dont happen in the real world but close enough for me.

FlaDon · May 6, 2009

mn_voyageur said:
What would it take to connect a Gravely deck to a BCS?

This is making me ask again as to whether you could connect a 60" deck made for a standard tractor. As I stated in my original post, they are only lifting them to load and unload. Otherwise they are supported by the four wheels.

BCS PTO turns the wrong way, as far as I know, to connect to a Gravely deck. A standard 60" Gravely deck just requires the Gravely Conversion kit for the Center Mount 60" and uses a QH setup.