JohnnyMX
Gold Member
Hello everyone. I just jumped on TBN and thought I'd share a post as I have spent many hours reading before my recent tractor upgrade. We moved out to the country from a .25 acre lot to a 60 acre lot that was once an old tree farm. Roughly a 50/50 split between wooded (tree farm and woods) and old pasture/crp land. We have been using a Kubota L245DT (22pto) to maintain the 1/2 mile drive, brush hog, and for a while finish mowing the house area. We finally got a zero turn 2 years ago and that took my mowing from 4 hours to 1.5 so the new tractor won't be used for that. I can't count the times I said to myself that "if this tractor had a loader xyz would be so easy." That particular tractor was also very light for the road work with the box blade and homemade grader/reclaimer that we have made from giant I beams. Too many times to count that tractor went wheels up or got very light. I looked into adding a loader to that and found that the cost of the loader would be more than the value of the tractor and at the end of the day it would have a 600lb lift or something along those lines and still wouldn't have enough PTO to cut the 8' weeds that grow up in the in-cut portions of the fields. Trying to maintain some of the fields was tough with a 5' cutter and not enough power to run more than 1mph.
We ended up getting a used MX5200 hst with about 50 hours with the LA1065 loader, 6' rotary cutter, 74" tiller, forks, bucket, tree/post puller and a WR Long OBP-2 66" grapple. The R4's are loaded with beet juice (800lb). This thing feels like an absolute beast compared to what I've been using. I was comparing the MX line to an L4060 HSTC, but between the added cost for the cab, and only a smaller gain in Hp/PTO I wasn't sure if it was enough of a jump to make an upgrade worth while. I certainly wanted a larger Grand-L (45-50hp) but they were way out of my budget. I can't even tell you what a difference the MX5200 is. I spent an hour and a half last night attacking some of the giant invasive multiflora rose on the property and it ripped it up and out like it wasn't there and I could pile and stack it. I've been using chemicals/salt to kill it, but you still have the thorny mess. I tried once to move it by hand and realized that was dumb. I probably did a weekend's worth of clean-up in that 1.5 hours.
I've never run a loader but got the hang of it quick and using the 3rd function was easy. The hydrostatic transmission seemed to make that job really easy compared to my old gear-driven L245DT. This should make brush hogging out in the old tree farm much easier as well as I can get under things quicker and 47PTO should allow me to use at least a decent travel speed. I try my best to find the right tool for the job and hope that this one keeps paying off. As many people out there with kids, wife, work, life there's only so many hours to get stuff done and hopefully this makes them count. Now to try out the tree/post puller on all the trees that were allowed to get to big. They are right on the edge of brush hog vs. chainsaw removal.
We ended up getting a used MX5200 hst with about 50 hours with the LA1065 loader, 6' rotary cutter, 74" tiller, forks, bucket, tree/post puller and a WR Long OBP-2 66" grapple. The R4's are loaded with beet juice (800lb). This thing feels like an absolute beast compared to what I've been using. I was comparing the MX line to an L4060 HSTC, but between the added cost for the cab, and only a smaller gain in Hp/PTO I wasn't sure if it was enough of a jump to make an upgrade worth while. I certainly wanted a larger Grand-L (45-50hp) but they were way out of my budget. I can't even tell you what a difference the MX5200 is. I spent an hour and a half last night attacking some of the giant invasive multiflora rose on the property and it ripped it up and out like it wasn't there and I could pile and stack it. I've been using chemicals/salt to kill it, but you still have the thorny mess. I tried once to move it by hand and realized that was dumb. I probably did a weekend's worth of clean-up in that 1.5 hours.
I've never run a loader but got the hang of it quick and using the 3rd function was easy. The hydrostatic transmission seemed to make that job really easy compared to my old gear-driven L245DT. This should make brush hogging out in the old tree farm much easier as well as I can get under things quicker and 47PTO should allow me to use at least a decent travel speed. I try my best to find the right tool for the job and hope that this one keeps paying off. As many people out there with kids, wife, work, life there's only so many hours to get stuff done and hopefully this makes them count. Now to try out the tree/post puller on all the trees that were allowed to get to big. They are right on the edge of brush hog vs. chainsaw removal.
