I have been mowing the four acres or so of fields around my lawn at the new home with my existing 7 foot super heavy duty Land Pride bush hog mower. With the blades sharpened on it, it does an amazingly good job mowing the field nicely. But it does not, for sure, lay the clippings down nicely, nor was it ever intended to.
So I need a finish mower for my 50hp pto Kubota. Would like a seven foot mower but will stick with a six foot because I think that price point is more competitive and it really doesn't take that long to mow. And I'm in a/c anyway...
Tractor Supply is very close to my home. So is the Kubota dealer with Land Pride.
The challenge is that the Land Pride stuff is usually almost double what TSC or AgSupply or similar have in their own brands.
I own both TSC equipment and Land Pride, and it all works well.
No rocks, flat ground, want a better appearance. This area will be converted to a fruit orchard next year and I want to be able to mow around the trees with this mower also. I have a JD X750 with a 60 deck for the five acres of lawn, but want the field to look like a field, not a lawn.
Does paying twice as much for a finish mower represent any type of value? I see the Italians make a lot of these mowers, Caroni and others.
Would greatly appreciate feedback from finish mower owners as to their experience with quality of cut, reliability of mowers, etc.
I have trees on one side and white plastic horse fencing on the other. Usually mow at about 7 inches height.
thank you. Drew
I have the 6 foot Tractor Supply Company rear finish mower that I use to mow my yard, ditches, and an orchard area. The mower is made by Tarter Industries and virtually identical to any other rear fniish mower I have seen. The only difference between it and say the Frontier, John Deere, Kubota, BEFCO, Bush Hog, etc. 6 foot rear mowers is that it's about 50-100 pounds heavier than most of the others as it weighs just shy of 700 pounds. My yard is about half an acre of grassy weeds and relatively level although sloping as my house has a walk-out basement. I have about a quarter mile ditch along the road frontage and it's pretty level too. The PO mowed the yard and ditch with a Sears riding lawnmower. Now the orchard area was about an acre of former donkey paddock and is covered in stumps, rocky knolls, and has holes and bumps all over it. It also had 5 foot tall ragweed until I cut it down with my Dad's 5 foot Bush Hog. I use the finish mower to cut it all. I pull it with a Massey-Ferguson 1030L, which is about the physical size and weight of a smaller Kubota L (
L3301/L3801) and has 23 PTO HP which is a bit smaller than your M-series Kubota.
The quality of the cut of the mower is equal to that of a riding lawnmower, ZTR, or pushmower and it handles tall grass much better than any side-discharge unit I've ever used. The grass simply falls out of the back of the mower in a fine, disperse covering when the grass is tall and it doesn't windrow or bog down like a side-discharge unit. I mow going about 2.5 mph with the grass length set to a "normal lawn" setting of about 2 1/2". That speed is mostly due to terrain and the need to maneuver around some obstacles like fences, stumps, and the house. I can keep up that speed without bogging the engine at all until the grass gets to be about a foot or so tall, in which case I drop down a gear and it continues as usual. The two issues I do have with the mower- and this will apply to all rear finish mowers- are that it's not particularly maneuverable especially with a loader-equipped tractor and that the wide deck can scalp if you hit a high spot wrong. The mower does have an anti-scalp roller but if the ground is soft, the mower is heavy enough the leading edge of the mower will simply act as a blade and scalp the ground.
As far as reliability is concerned, I've only used the mower for about 30 hours or so. I've had zero problems. The only issue I could foresee with you is that your tractor is more than twice as powerful as mine and has enough PTO horsepower to potentially wreck the gearbox in the mower, which is only rated to 40 hp. My tractor isn't strong enough to shear the typical 1/2" shear bolt used in this finish mower or in most light and medium-duty rough-cut mowers, let alone wreck a gearbox. It bogs and kills the engine if I rough cut something too big.
Whistlepig, was that a Caroni? My understanding is that some of the Italian models are higher end, but who
knows, it could be just marketing jive.
Likely there are half a dozen alternative models in the low two thousand dollar range. Mowing this field only takes me two hours to do now, though it's with a 7 foot mower, not a 6.
I like the idea about putting bigger wheels on the mower. Isn't likely to be a problem with the pto adjusting upwards a couple of inches and certainly the three point hitch will adjust plenty high. Alternatively I always wondered if one could extend the mount downwards, like punching another hole in your belt...but tires just seem like such a simple solution, as long as there is clearance left between the tire and the mower deck. That might be a gamestopper pretty quickly if there's only an inch there to start with. Now if the wheels are set out a ways, then why not?
The Tractor Supply mower I have adjusts to a 5 1/2" cutting height like virtually every other mower out there. Larger guide wheels would not work as the wheels would rub against the U-shaped flange that connects the wheel axle to the guide wheel attachment bracket.
reminds me of the old days when 31x10.50's were the cat's meow on a truck, if you could get the clearance without jacking it up.
That's exactly what would happen. You'd need to replace the wheel flange with something with a greater flange top to axle centerline distance (e.g. the "legs of the U" need to be longer.) Either that or you need to change the pin at the top of the flange with something longer so you can add more spacers to increase the cutting height. However I'd think 5 1/2" is plenty tall for orchard grass. I mow mine at half of that. You can also always use the mower in "normal 3-point mode" where you don't set it all of the way down on the gauge wheels. You'd adjust the height with the 3-point like you would a rough-cut mower.
I actually got them on a suburban way back when and they fit fine. Man what a terrible ride though; the new suburbans are mercedes compared to those old bouncy darty trucks.
31s were "little" tires in my old days. The tires to have were 35" Super Swampers (35x12.50-15) and you had to put at least a 4" body lift to clear them on the half-ton 1973-87 Chevys and 1973-79/80-86 Fords people drove back in those days. You could usually stuff 33x12.50s with only one hockey puck worth of body lift. Yes, people used hockey pucks for body lifts as we were poor rednecks and didn't have a lot of money. Today the kids would have their parents go buy a proper Skyjacker suspension lift and put 37" diameter Nittos on 20" aluminum rims on their 2000s era 3/4 ton diesel pickups.
so of course I'd like my new mower to handle the curves, and bumps, not mind an occasional fire ant hill to blend up, and leave the clippings in a way they are not noticeable, assuming I don't try to cut too much off at one time.
Kubota dealer with the Land pride mowers never returned my email. Guess I'll stop in there tomorrow.
A rear finish mower doesn't handle side-to-side bumps all that well and will scalp most to all of the fire ant hills and mole hills in your orchard. The clippings are very un-noticeable compared to a side-discharge unit and you should be able to mow as tall and thick of grass as you want to with that 50 PTO HP unit of yours.
