Buying Advice tractors for running pecan tree shakers

mckinney · Nov 19, 2018

Hello, I'm new to the site and also to agricultural tractors. Have enjoyed reading on the site for some time and am now getting close to purchasing a tractor.

I have a 30 ac place with about 100 large old native pecan trees and about as many smaller ones. The rest of the place is blue stem grass, a creek and a pond. I need a tractor to shape the land (clean up after recent dozer work done to enlarge the pond), maintain the pasture and manage the pecan trees. I plan to run an air blast sprayer and a tree shaker for the pecans. Not much money in it I know, but I do want to harvest the pecans. I may also want to cut and bale some hay.

I'm looking at a Deere 5425, a Deere 5065M, and a Kubota M8200 - all cab tractors. I like the 5065M best of all but am worried that with only about 50 PTO horsepower it may be a bit weak to run the tree shaker and it might be marginal for running a hay baler. The 5425 would be a little better at about 67 PTO horsepower and the Kubota strongest of the 3.

I'd be grateful for any wisdom on the above. Thanks!

MickeyDBC · Nov 19, 2018

In the same boat here. We are in the first stage of planting about 50 acres of of trees and I have been looking at shakers too. Our tractor dealer said find an older 100hp tractor and then armor the heck out of it with a heavy cage including a solid top that branches cannot spear through. Big old trees often drop big branches when you shake them. He commented that a shaker is very hard on a tractor and you might as well kill an old one instead of a nice new one. I am thinking about mounting a shaker on the end of a 75hp or so excavator arm and running it from the hydraulics. With the shaker on the end of a 20 foot boom I could drive between the rows and shake trees on both sides. Where are you and have you taken the pecan course at Texas A&M? My wife took it last year and I am scheduled for it this winter, commercial pecans are a lot more complicated than having a few trees in the yard and fighting the squirrels for what falls on the ground.

mckinney · Nov 19, 2018

I'm in Fannin County TX. Haven't taken the A&M course yet but have done lots of reading and subscribed to the Pecan Growers Assoc publication. You're right about the complications! I bought my place from the heirs of an older couple who hadn't cared for it in 20 years or more. Some of the trees have pecan scab, pecan weevils and I don't know what all else. I figure I'll need a full season to understand how to treat them, so I'm focused on the air blast sprayer and tractor for now. I've had the same advice as you about finding an old tractor for the shaker but I figure I can armor a newer one and scan the trees with binoculars for (large) dead limbs before I shake them. The Savage people up in Madill, OK tell me that PTO horsepower is not as important as rear lift capacity but they do show 50 as the minimum PTO horsepower for their smallest shaker. I think the Deere 5065M with its heavy frame might work, but I need to get a little more comfort on that.