New to owning a tractor and looking for a tiller!

[jyoutz]

Yes. Cat

Cat 1 is a smaller pin and is definitely what your tractor has. As you get at 50+ HP (or so) many brands start offering Cat 1/2 that can handle the thicker pin for heavier duty work. The really big ones will go Cat 3.


My internet cables are Cat-6, but that's another topic.

Yes. Cat 1 pins are 3/4” and cat 2 pins are 1”. Cat 1/2 hitches require the 1” pins, but will adjust the arms narrow enough to accommodate cat 1 implements with a cat 2 conversion bushing.

 

[mo1]

As bigtiller mentioned my PTO is rated at 19 HP for the 1626, but reviewing several YouTube videos I see many folks equipping a 5ft (25-40 HP recommended) tiller onto a smaller tracker rated at 20 to 25 HP with a PTO HP in the range of 17 to 19 HP at the PTO. So is this common for folk to do this? Is it safe to do so under certain conditions? These oversized tillers and undersized tractors seem to work like a dream during the videos.

I ran a 6' forward-rotation tiller on a tractor with 23 PTO HP in the past. That tractor had a creeper transmission so I was in the slowest gear it had (I don't think it was even 1/2 MPH), and the tractor was very unhappy with running the tiller. A 5'er would have been a better fit. You apparently have the gear-drive version of the Mahindra with 21 PTO HP, so I would go no larger than a 5' tiller.

Since others are adding comments for comparison I have a question also. Kubota, 2009 L3400 Extra power HST,engine 35.7 HP, PTO 28.5 HP would you get a 5 ft or 6 ft tiller?

I would get a 5'er. You maybe could run a 6'er but your tractor isn't wide enough that you would absolutely have to do so to cover your tracks. I had a tractor with only a few less PTO HP than that and it definitely struggled a lot to run a 6' tiller. I can't say exactly how many more PTO HP it takes to run a 6' tiller as the only other tractor I've run that tiller on has about 65 PTO HP and has no idea there's even a tiller back there.

Cat 1 is a smaller pin and is definitely what your tractor has. As you get at 50+ HP (or so) many brands start offering Cat 1/2 that can handle the thicker pin for heavier duty work. The really big ones will go Cat 3.


My internet cables are Cat-6, but that's another topic.

Often something listed with two different hitch catetgories has a setup where there is a set of pins on the inside of the 3 point mast for the smaller category and a set of pins outside the mast for the larger category. There are usually two separate top pins. This often is used with 3 point masts where a stepped or bushed pin goes through three flanges and would be able to used with a quick hitch for either category right out of the box. Sometimes this is category 1 and 2 but usually things set up this way are larger, either 2/3 or 3/4. Occasionally something listed as a category 1/2 means it's a regular category 1 implement that you can use top link and draft link bushings to use on a category 2 hitch. You can generally use one category implement smaller than what your hitch is made for as you can use bushings to reduce pin diameter and move your draft links in far enough to attach them to the pins. You cannot use a larger implement on a smaller tractor as you won't be able to fit the pins through your hitch links and you won't be able to spread the draft links far enough apart to get them on the draft pins even if you put smaller diameter pins in place.

Your patch cord from the modem may be a cat 6 but unless your computer is in a data center, your internet comes in on some other cabling, such as coaxial, fiber-optic, wireless, or cat 3 POTS cabling if you have DSL.

 

[JohnnyMX]

I have a low-end LandPride reverse tine ("RTR") tiller. Got it for some garden beds and food plots. I have very rocky clay soil so the first till can be tough. Mine was rocky enough that it was windrowing boulder piles ahead of the tiller as the RTR keep kicking them forward and I've gotten a few lodged stopping all rotation instantly. My tiller is now beat to death from all the rocks and the lower-end build. If I had stepped up to a suitable version, I'm sure that wouldn't be an issue.

I now run a landscape rake and grapple through anything tilled to remove as much of the 3-4+" plus stuff as possible so the next till isn't as bad. You never get them all. Second till is a dream, but it is some work to get there and if you do nothing to remove the rock, you just hit it over and over again.

If I had to do it over again given my soil conditions, I would opt for stouter build quality and pick forward rotation. Now that I have what I have, I just say a little prayer every time I drop the tiller in on a first pass at this point and keep my hand on the PTO button.