Rotary Cutter rotary cutter or finish mower?

[Soundguy]

abusing the mower or tractor is surely not what I want to do, so I'll stick to the rough cut and do it twice in lowering heights. No matter what, if the engine struggles, I'll just slow down, though I cut pretty slow anyway.
Now if I could take twenty pounds off me and put 20hp more in my tractor....

with a rough mower.. no need to cut it 2x at different heights.

just set your desired height, and then choose a ground speed so that you can maneuver safely, and the tractor is not laboring.

soundguy

 

[Soundguy]

For 18 acres I would be looking for a 60-100 hp tractor with a 10-15' flail mower.

way cheaper to go with a rotary cutter.. probaly by a FACTOR of price. 10' rotary cutters can be had int he 2800$ range. I'm not sure a flail can be had anywhere near that.. not to mention.. the flail will take more hp, and have a higher maintenance cost and time interval compaired to a rotary mower..

quite simply.. none of the big mowing outfits around here use anything but rotary mowers. our county even ditched all it's flails when they wore out.. with all the business men and maintenance directors using rotary.. i have to think that tells the true story of cost / price.. etc..

soundguy

 

[Farmwithjunk]

For 18 acres I would be looking for a 60-100 hp tractor with a 10-15' flail mower.

Flail mowers don't do very well with regards to leaving grass long....They're better off for mowing where you're essentially scalping the ground.

Along with that, 15' of flail mower in heavy grass would demand something more to the tune of 130/150hp, OR, mowing at such a slow pace you'd never get finished.


Just a thought, I'd be tempted to mow with a sickle bar mower set to height with some sort of gauge wheel. Low HP required, and would cut to desired height in a single pass. You could probably run a 6' or 7' sickle bar with what HP you have to work with.

 

[greg_g]

Flail mowers don't do very well with regards to leaving grass long....They're better off for mowing where you're essentially scalping the ground.

Absolutely false. Just because you bought the wrong tool for the job once doesn't automatically bestow you with flail mower bona fides. On the other hand, I've mowed 15 acres of pasture for years - and nearly 900' of road frontage - with a 74" Ford 917H. Flails can be adjusted for cutting height just like a rotary cutter or finish mower; typically a coarse rear roller height adjustment that is then fine tuned with the toplink. Once adjusted competently, I have no problem leaving six or more inches of edible grass standing. When I have to mow the highway right of way down to a desired 2-3", I don't even have to move the rear roller. It's just a matter of pulling in the toplink a few inches closer to leave less grass.

That said, the presence of that full width rear roller means they don't cut very well in reverse. And 1000 hours on a 21hp PTO won't help much going the other way either.

You were right, but for the wrong reasons. The OP simply doesn't have enough tractor for a flail mower of sufficient swath to efficiently maintain 18 acres.

//greg//

 

[Mark Page]

I used to mow 8 acres of tall grass and weeds with 35 hp Massey and a 6 ft. bush hog. Good combination but i wouldn't try it with a 20 hp machine. A 20 hp tractor and a 4' mower would make more sense and give you a better job without taxing the machine so hard. But man, 18 acres is going to take about 12 hours. Most finish mowers would do the job especially the RD models, but their not made for that kind of job.

 

[pacerron]

Actually somewhere into the second mowing, I realized I WAS nuts to do this with a ZT, no matter that it looked like a golf course when I was done. Ok. Five foot mower maximum, and I suppose cut it fairly high on the first pass; then drop it down to about 6 inches on the second.
Drew

Is the grass really that bad that the first cutting couldn't really be used for making hay? There should be some farmer near by that would cut and roll it on shares or take all if your friend has no use for it or doesn't want to sell it.

You could then keep it groomed for him with your finish mower the rest of the season by mowing it with your finish mower for your enjoyment. Mowing with a bush hog looks like crap compared to a finish mower. Mowing with a cutter bar and leaving it lay to rot also looks like crap.
Good equipment will stand a lot of abuse but spindle bearing assemblies and blade holders are quite expensive to replace.

 

[Soundguy]

There should be some farmer near by that would cut and roll it on shares or take all if your friend has no use for it or doesn't want to sell it.

i'm surprised about that too. we have a local guy that will cut and bail your field, even if it is junk grass, and sell it for 15-20$ a roll for cow hay.. and give you a couple bucks per roll, then disc it and seed it for you at the beginning of the season. so it's no cost, you get a LIL money and a better ground cover crop next season out of it..

Mowing with a bush hog looks like crap compared to a finish mower. .

not always. once you get a cut established, if you sharpen up the rotary a bit, then maintain it.. it loks about as good as a shaggy lawn cut by a cheap 800$ rider..

soundguy

 

[daugen]

Unfortunately the area in which I live (central Bucks Co Pa) was all farmland when I was a kid, and is mostly house farms now. With the exception of expensively preserved land, most of the fields and farmers are now gone, so there aren't that many real farmers in this area anymore to call. Most of the dealers won't even work on tractors anymore....they don't have enough call for it. Pretty sad state of affairs for a kid who grew up on a farm.
I looked at all the hay/forage/grass I chopped up, sometimes two or three times with the zero turn, and thought "boy something should be eating this, or at least burning it for biofuel". Just seemed a waste of a natural resource.

The property across the street is smaller and is mowed with a large cab tractor and a rough cut mower. And it looks awful when it's done. My guy really doesn't like looking out over his fields and seeing all those lumps and clumps. and absolutely loved the look of the finished cut. But the amount of work it took to accomplish that was ridiculous and I'm not doing it any more. So...i will keep very sharp blades and other than mowing it twice, not sure there's any other solution.

So I get back to an early question...is there a rough cut mower that cuts a little nicer than the rest, or are they all the same? They sure look pretty much the same, with or without chains, etc. I'd like to keep my cost of this mower to under 1500 for a five footer, which I realize doesn't get me anything heavy duty. I'm off to Tractor Supply in the next few days to see what they have; they are about the only ag store in this area, and they aren't close; I have to go over to NJ to find a store. Or I suppose head West to Lancaster where the real farmers still are..

One last concern regarding mowing. I hate to run machinery at higher rpm, other than air cooled stuff that needs the rpm. But to get to pto speed, it seems one has to run the engine at what, 85-90% throttle? I know the new tractors have a slower engine pto speed option, but this tractor sure doesn't. And if I'm going to get a nice cut I'm going to need every bit of blade speed I can get, so no skimping on rpm. This is why I wish there was a temp gauge on this engine and not an idiot light. I know that the mower design is optimized at pto rated speed, but can you run a little less if the grass isn't too thick?

 

[Martian]

I used to use a 5' finish mower (used with an older, smaller tractor) to mow down hay pastures with an 85 (65PTO) HP tractor. I had to go as slow as I could, I mean grandma with a walker passing me speed to get the cut to look half way decent. Recently decided to get rid of the non sense and got an 7' rotary cutter and now can fly around in high gear and get a GREAT cut, better than the finish mower used to be and 1/3 the time mowing. Your biggest problem is power. And you don't have enough of it. I wouldn't put any more money into it, including a mower and save up till you can get something that isn't severely underpowered.

 

[Soundguy]

One last concern regarding mowing. I hate to run machinery at higher rpm, other than air cooled stuff that needs the rpm. But to get to pto speed, it seems one has to run the engine at what, 85-90% throttle? I know the new tractors have a slower engine pto speed option, but this tractor sure doesn't. And if I'm going to get a nice cut I'm going to need every bit of blade speed I can get, so no skimping on rpm. This is why I wish there was a temp gauge on this engine and not an idiot light. I know that the mower design is optimized at pto rated speed, but can you run a little less if the grass isn't too thick?

it's a tool.. like a shovel.

pto speed is set for a reason. the tractor's power band shou;ld also be designed to be in that pto range.

a good machine should run at rated load and speed as long as it has consumables and lubrication and breathes good... day in, day out.

buying a tractor and worrying about running it at pto rpm to mow is like buying a gun for self defense, but not loading it because you don't want to wear it out when you use it to defend yourself???