Upgrade from JD 2305 to 2320 then too ???? or am I crazy?

yelbike · Jun 18, 2012

After a catastrophic case failure on my JD 2305, I bought a JD 2320. I love it but now I'm starting to wonder if I need something larger yet. The only chore the tractor struggles with tilling with my 60" king kutter (Behlen) tiller. My wife mows with the JD Z465 Zt and if I help her, the 2320 spins the 72" farm king rfm like nothing(doesn't even require full rpm).

The 2320 had no problems last year with the tiller, but now I've adjusted the skids a little higher so its tilling a little deeper. The engine drops rpm easily even at a snail pace. I don't want to kill the engine. I don't put all that much hours on it so I thought i'd likely not replace this tractor for a long time. The reason I justified the zturn mower was to keep the hours off the tractor. I just started researching the 3220, but realize the pto hp is the same as the jd 2320. I really wouldn't know what the next step up in the jd line up would be.

The loader speed is of no issue for me neither is the hi/low range speed.

I mow about 5 acres and till about 2 acres(tree lines).

Thanks for imput.

XSKIER · Jun 18, 2012

How many hours on your 3TN76V? Mine seems more powerful at 55hrs than it did at 10rs. I think the next logical step for you would be for a 300CX, 3520 Cab, and iMatch. Good luck in your shopping!

XSKIER · Jun 18, 2012

I feel that your current tiller and mower are some awfully large PTO attachments for a 19hp anyway.

jenkinsph · Jun 18, 2012

I think you misread the numbers, if you meant a JD 3320 then it has 25 pto hp. Your 2320 has about 18 pto hp which is quite a bit less.

I use a Howard Rotovator HR4 tiller 60" behind my x749 mower, it will drop off a few hundred rpms' if I go too fast but does a good job overall. That should be the same engine as your 2320 too. When I use this same tiller with the larger 820 31hp pto it never slows down, so adding a few more horses should help you.

When I use the Deeere 673 tiller with the 820 I can load it down a few hundred rpms' occasionally but the 4520 50 pto hp can run it full speed and up to 2.0 mph.

Hope these comparisons help you work it out, my thoughts on this would be to consider a 2720 with 25 pto hp and the lighter weight setup, should be a good fit for a 60" tiller.

KennedyDiesel · Jun 20, 2012

Not sure what you are tilling, but here we have a heavy clay type soil that makes balls easily. My 455 runs the 450 (50") tiller with no shoes as I till my garden deep. To get the depth I run quite slow just inching along otherwise the tiller starts to ride up.

yelbike · Jun 20, 2012

I'm tilling an area roughly 2000' x60'(not sure what that equates to in acreas). Mostly field blown topsoil. It does too ball up when its now dried out enough. Sometimes I get slowed down to a snails pace. It doesn't ride up, just bogs the rpms down. I bought the larger tiller mainly for keeping the tree lines black. I figured tilling the sod up last year was going to be tough and slow going, it wasn't bad at all. But this year I'm trying to go down a little deeper and the tractor is struggling. I don't want to kill it.

Last week I finally finished my harrow project and thats working pretty good, much faster yet less effective then tilling though.

jenkinsph · Jun 20, 2012

yelbike said:
I'm tilling an area roughly 2000' x60'(not sure what that equates to in acreas). Mostly field blown topsoil. It does too ball up when its now dried out enough. Sometimes I get slowed down to a snails pace. It doesn't ride up, just bogs the rpms down. I bought the larger tiller mainly for keeping the tree lines black. I figured tilling the sod up last year was going to be tough and slow going, it wasn't bad at all. But this year I'm trying to go down a little deeper and the tractor is struggling. I don't want to kill it.

Last week I finally finished my harrow project and thats working pretty good, much faster yet less effective then tilling though.

FWIW, that is about 2 3/4 acres at a speed of about 1/2 mph or slightly faster it would take about 8 to 10hrs to till this with your 60" tiller and tractor.

yelbike · Jun 20, 2012

Yup, thats about right for the time it took to till the sod the first time around. Shoulndn't it go faster after that?

jenkinsph · Jun 21, 2012

That is a large tiller for the size tractor you have, if you were going for a greater depth on the next pass it is likely you would not move any faster. I have a similar size tiller and the same engine IIRC so I am familiar with what you should be able to achieve. I use mine for much smaller jobs than what you are attempting. For larger jobs I use the 4520 and 673 tiller which will till about 8 inches in two passes. Ground conditions can certainly vary for different locales but where I am tilling making two passes in different directions 2.75 acres would take about 5 hours total time. That is a first pass at 1.5 mph and a second pass in the opposite direction at 1.8 mph with tiller at pto speed. Depending on conditions (optimum) I can sometimes run 2.0 mph. I mention all of this to give you some idea of what the tillers are capable of if you have the power to keep them turning up to speed.

I should add that if this is a one time thing you might just tough it out. If you are going to do this repeatedly then I would move up in pto hp.

yelbike · Jun 21, 2012

I realize the tiller is on the larger side for the tractor. I guess my problem stems from my assumption that once the ground was nicely tilled, subsequent passes would easily therefor faster. Did I assume wrong?

The only part of this project thats one time is the initial ground breaking. Hopefully the tree lines will be there longer then I will.