What size Kubota for round bales?

[Turbys_1700]

I'm in Iredell County and I see Kubotas making inroads on my side of the river.

Steve

My salesman just informed me that he sold a 5 series Kubota to a local farmer. The farmer told him it was the best tractor he's ever owned thus far. The 5 and 6 series Kubota will certainly make inroads into Catawba County eventually. They are heavier than the M series. Don't see any reason why an M series would not be sufficient for most 50 to 100 acre cattle operations here.

 

[YLee Kioti]

A couple of feature to consider would be stall control and linked pedal.
The linked pedal saves on fuel as it works in principle as a vehicle accelerator.
Can be used majority of time.
Pull up to bale spear it and move it to location.
Flip switch to un-link and rev up engine for hyd. power and proceed with bale placement.
One can easily et used to feature in about 30 seconds...heh...
good luck in your search.

Oh stall control great for picking up buckets of dirt etc....

 

[Grandad4]

Mine is fully synchronized and I don't have to clutch to change gears or go from forward to reverse and vise versa.

Our bales are the 5x5's. Not sure of the weight and no way to weight them without going through a lot of time and trouble since the only scales would be at Southern States.

The M series is pretty much a no go. If I have to go to that big of a tractor I'll just stick with the Ford.

I'd be comfortable handling 5x5's with forks on an MX that's ballasted properly, or one of the GL's with the large loader, likewise ballasted.

 

[DieselnHooters]

The L3600 came with a fully synchronized manual gearbox, or the Glideshift Transmission (GST), which is the Kubota version of a hydraulic shuttle, allowing clutchless forward/reverse and gear changes. Don't know which is on the OP's L3600.

I used to own a Ford 1310, gears were synchronized between 3rd and 4th which meant you didn't have to come to a full stop but you still needed to depress the clutch. I thought that is what GST or glide shift meant.

 

[houser52]

I used to own a Ford 1310, gears were synchronized between 3rd and 4th which meant you didn't have to come to a full stop but you still needed to depress the clutch. I thought that is what GST or glide shift meant.

My GST has 8 gears with F&R shuttle shift. To shift all I do is just move the lever to the gear I want, without clutching. Shuttling between F and R is just moving the shuttle lever however, if I'm using the loader or box blade while under a load, I depress the clutch to change directions. That just makes for smoother operation.

 

[Fallon]

Synchronized in transmission terms means synchro between the gears on a manual transmission you need to clutch for. Synchros mean you can shift gears by just clutching without needing to come to a complete stop. All modern manual transmissions in cars have been like this for years.

GST (Kubota Glide Shift Transmission, JD PowerShift & others) is a transmission that will automatically shift gears & actuate the clutch based on shift or shuttle lever input. You dont need to ever hit the clutch to start, stop, change directions or change gears. GST is a much more premium transmission than a synchronized transmission.

 

[crazyal]

If you are thinking about trading in then can I assume that you are talking about buying from a dealer (either new or close to new)? If so can you just bring a bale down on the back of a truck or trailer and move it around in the lot with which ever tractor you are thinking about? I'm sure the dealer would be happy to let you. I can't see any dealer wanting to sell you the wrong piece of equipment. I would think the MX would do fine. I've moved a couple round bales with my 4240 but the front tires are too small and even at 35 psi they flatten out to the point where I'm worried that if I turn sharp enough I could loose a bead when I lift near the max load of my loader. But on the 40 series (vs 3 for the 60 series) there was only two loaders and the 4240 got the larger loader while all the GL models above the 4740 got larger tires to handle the weight better. I personally like the grand L tractors because of the extra features but I think that they are going to be out of your price range.

 

[Tx Jim]

You're right about the GL and MX models with large rounds. A dense packed 6x6 will weigh about 1,500-1,700 and is a bit much. I could move them around pretty well with my GL,

May I ask where you find a 6X6 rd bale. I would think a dense packed 6X6 rd bale would weight 2000#s. I only remember 1 model older Vermeer rd baler that made a bale that size

I really like the hyd shuttle on my Kubota M7040 for handling rd bales. It's handled several 1000 4X5.5 rd bales in the 6 yrs I've owned it.

 

[Oldoak]

Keep in mind, while a smaller tractor may handle the weight anticipated, it will not be as stable as a larger heavier tractor with a bigger foot print on ruff or uneven ground or while raising the loader to it's maximum height.

 

[houser52]

Thanks for all of your input and opinions guys.

Looks like there's mixed opinions on whether the MX is big enough to handle 5x5 round bales, some say yes, some no.

Is anyone actually using the Kubota MX when working with round bales?