Requesting help selecting first tractor. 73 wooded acres and a mile of steep roads.

[DieselBound]

Keep in mind that if you're needing to do a bunch of work in the woods that a cab can make things a bit difficult. I'd love to have a cab but I'm on and off my tractor a lot and have a bunch of trees (which could either threaten to break the cab up [my poor B7800 has been beaten to death by branches and stuff]).

Years ago I was tromping around MF283's neck of the woods looking at property. Various twists in life through me off that course.

 

[Old Guy in Tenn]

No SSQA. Was used only with loader by PO since new. Forks are made to fasten to loader bucket, so not much trouble for me there.

Will try for grapple - and thumb for hoe. I will be moving a lot of trees and associated waste.

Cab. Wasn't looking for one, mostly for reasons you mentioned. Wife counseled that the mile of road will mean a lot of seat time, and suggested that we make cutting trees back a top priority so can appreciate cab without beating it up.

Thanks

 

[oosik]

I have 80 acres and a mile long gravel driveway here in Ea WA. When we came down to the property from AK(1982) there was no road, at all, to my property. I had the driveway constructed by a local contractor. Looking back - there was NO WAY I had the skills, knowledge or equipment to have built this driveway myself.

For the first 25 years I did my "thing" on this property with a Ford 1700 4WD. It was adequate for winter snow removal but simply too small & light for summer maintenance. Plus it would not do the job on the large rocks & massive Ponderosa pines I have here.

So in 2009 I bit the bullet and bought my Kubota M6040. I can now do snow removal without chains on all four or a PTO driven snow thrower to clear the berms along the driveway. I can handle the largest rocks & chunked up sections of pine with ease - YEA for the grapple.

Each of the tractors had its place & time. But now with all the small jobs completed it was time to move on the the larger jobs.

 

[Old Guy in Tenn]

After reviewing the thoughtful feedback here (thank you) and from others, we hired the road work, and it was completed (for now) yesterday. My son & I scooted down to Tennessee for a long weekend, to ensure that some details were completed as we wanted. It was a great trip, and a relief to have that work completed.

The road was smoothed and widened from the pavement to the hilltop (about a mile). The crude and troublesome waterbars were replaced with ditches, broad-based dips, and careful sloping of the roadway to control runoff. Several "passing zones" were added to accommodate 2-way traffic, and trees and limbs were removed to a height of at least 20 feet above the roadway.

The 7-8 acres which were clear-cut 4 years ago were stripped of vegetation. All old stumps were removed along with a lot of rock. There are a lot of 1/2" sapling stems still standing, but they are stripped of branches and most of the bark. We agreed that brush-hogging them in the spring was preferable to destroying the shallow topsoil while grubbing them out. A trip to the Co-op Monday morning yielded 200 lbs of annual rye, 200 lbs of fescue, and 50 lbs of clover, along with a spreader to mount on an ATV. Monday afternoon we mounted it on my neighbor's ATV, and he started spreading seed yesterday. We mixed the different seeds in his portable cement mixer, hoping to get an even distribution on the ground. Rain is expected Thursday, so it should get a good start.

They prepared a barn pad, removing topsoil and flattening a rise, leaving a flat square of mostly undisturbed subsoil. They also prepared driveways to the car parking area and the future barn door.

I am trying now to get pictures from phone to computer, and will post some of them soon if/when I succeed.

- John

 

[holeycow]

That is awesome John!

Good luck with what comes next!

Jftr, the way to get even distribution with a "flinging seed all over the place" kind of a spreader is to make two passes roughly perpendicular to each other applying about 1/2 your seeding rate with each grid. Also, you have to reach in the bin and mix the seed periodically ( bringing the bottom to the top)or the smaller, round seeds ( in this case clover) will tend to migrate to the bottom as you bounce around. Not too big of a deal, but that is what happens. A pass with harrows during or after seeding helps consolidate the seed and keeps some of it away from the birds...

Hope you get a good catch.

Regards.

Oh, and listen to your wife about the cab tractor. Remember, she is smarter than you.

 

[Old Guy in Tenn]

A look at the property...
White line is road coming in from the pavement. Not including the branch which goes down by the water it is about a mile. Red outline is property line. The little triangle between us and the lake is owned by the TVA. They keep a band of property all around the lake. Along the cove/hollow to the NE we own right down to the normal high water line (summer pool). The clearing I mention is the rectangle running N-NW to S-SE on the W edge of property. It is a 500 foot drop from there to the water.




Roads - Typical before reclaim for logging in 2012, then after repair after logging in 2014, then now. In the years between logging and now the roads had deteriorated almost to the before-logging state, but were also overgrown with foliage (as in trees, tree limbs, bushes, etc). Are now generally much smoother, much wider, and with much better water control. I wish I had money today for gravel. The road on the north side as it loops up onto the hilltop never gets sun, so is slow to dry out. That will be the first to get stone and gravel, but I cannot do it now.



Clearing at the top. 7-8 acres. Before with stumps and slash, then after with only small saplings, then some of the removed debris. Entire east side of clearing is a 6-foot high wall of stumps, logs and soil removed from hilltop last week.

 

[Old Guy in Tenn]

Holeycow - I will forward your seeding recommendations to the fellow spreading it, but I expect he is finished. The plan was to beat tomorrow's forecast rain. Hopefully the rain will also hide some of the seed from the birds. Fingers crossed. We can seed it again the opposite direction in the spring if necessary.

 

[holeycow]

Old Tennessee guy,

May your grass grow and together with existing native seed; flourish.

Looks like your contractor did an excellent job!

Well done my son....errrr....you ancient old fart.

Now you'll need a tractor, and some gravel.

That's a long road. Unless you are going to buy a gravel truck you'll likely have to hire out gravel spreading too. You found your guy. Or the guy that knows the guys.

It looks rocky there? Do you have a possibility of getting some decent gravel right off your land? You want to put big stuff in the soft areas to build a base to eventually top off with clean, hopefully angular gravel. Fix the soft spots first.

Sometimes a big hole ( gravel pit) comes in handy...or can be made a feature...

And you could possibly continue to use some of your own material to do maintenance.

Still thinkin' about a tractor? Let us help you spend your money, lol.

Exciting times!!

 

[piller]

Just came across this thread. I'm in Morgan county in East TN. Congrats on your property and getting your road fixed up. It's a constant battle, roads and water control, especially if your roads are steep, or if they don't get sun.

I'm using a 4wd tractor, with loader, and it is an open station ROPS tractor. What I do with my tractor on trails and off in the trees I definitely could not do or would not want to try with a cab model. I don't have a grapple, but I do have a bucket and a good set of pallet forks and the combination is very useful. I've got a woods BB720X six foot 3 point hitch mower that is also super useful, I can go just about anywhere with it, it will cut fairly thick stuff and is tough, and it is a good counter weight when doing a lot of front end loader work. I've also got a box blade, things I would want to get would be a rear blade and or a landscape rake, they would be better for ditching and for maintaining the gravel on my road.

My tractor has R1 Ag tires, I would not consider anything else for my situation. Filled rear tires add weight and stability. My tractor has a nice feature, it is a transmission parking brake, it keeps my tractor where I want it to be, very handy when you are on and off the tractor often especially in steep places.

There are lot's of ways to get hurt or killed with a tractor, so please be careful, make sure you family understands and is safe. My next door neighbor who had been running tractors his whole life on a good size farm had a tractor accident a few years ago that killed him, he was taking off his bush hog and he ended up getting crushed and no one came looking for him for several hours.

Good luck!

 

[mike69440]

Hire a dozer for a few days to cut in and fix the rough stuff.
Purchase a good used 7-13 ton excavator with a dozer blade will be really hand on you land. Or consider a full size commercial TLB.
A good large compact tractor to work with the TLB or excavator like a Mahindra 3550 so you can box blade and bucket smaller loads around, farm etc.

With an excavator consider a utility tractor over large compact.

This land will be a project!