I have decided I want a Flail Mower to use behind my Kubota
L5460. I am looking at both the Side Shift and the Ditch Bank Mower types. The property I am maintaining is 7 acres of 90% flat open ground but there are some areas where I have a ditch and bank situation that tend to get overgrown. This is where the ditch/bank mower would shine, and the side shift to a lesser extent. I am concerned that the ditch/bank mower with its complex Arms etc would be less than optimal to use on the flat open areas, making me regret my decision to go that route. Can anyone comment on their experience with these type mowers on open ground?
Thank you
Jim
Here are some issues you need to think about.
1. Is the tractor pto powerful enough to run the mower?
2. How much offset capacity you need? It depend on the shape of the ditch bank, and is the soil near the bank too soft? For safety, you should keep your tractor wheel a safe distance away from the ditch bank, avoid the tractor fall over.
3. When the ditch mower swing to side at its longest distance, it's at the biggest gravity force position, so you also need to check if your tractor weight can balance the ditch mower at this position.
In theory, ditch mower has same performance as regular flail mower on open ground, it's just a flail mower with long arm.
Here are some areas on ditch mower which can have problem different from the regular flail mower.
1. Its pivot(the connection point between arm and mower housing), if the manufacturer doesn't make it well, or sometimes the user doesn't notice the tree or stump and let the mower hit it, the pivot may crack. I even had one special case, one customer drived his tractor and ditch mower back to the garage, but the garage door height is too low, the ditch mower is at vertical position when transport, then the mower edge hit the garage door and cracked the pivot. So, after sale service is also important, if the seller can supply all kinds spare parts and technical support.
2. The 3 point hitch tube, when the ditch mower is at its longest offset postion, then this will create the biggest force on the 3 point hitch. I was in this trouble in the very beginning, tried some different solution on the 3 point hitch tube size/quality and reinforcement, after then this problem was solved. I see some sellers followed my design, that's good.
3. The hose, ditch mower has long hose, watch out the hoses, don't let them lay down too low, otherwise they will be caught by branch or something else. In case the hose is caught by branch and suddenly cracked, the cylinder inside will lose its pressure at once, if this happen on the tilt cylinder and there is no safety valve, then the mower body can suddently fall down heavily. So it's important for ditch mower that it has to have safety valve on tilt cylinder. Unfortunately, even now, I still can see some seller is selling the ditch mower without safety valve on tilt cylinder. Besides the safety valve on tilting cylinder, there should be a hydrailc oil flow speed valve on the tilting cylinder, it's used to control the tilting movement speed, different tractor has different oil pump and flow speed, so you can use this speed valve on ditch mower to control its tilting movement speed, you won't like it fall down too fast.
One more thing, the ditch flail mower has two cylinders, one for offset movement and one for tilting movement, so it requires the tractor has two rear sloop hydraulics. I had some customers only has one sloop rear hydraulics, then I recommend him to purchase "Electric Rear Remote Valve Kit" on Amazon. Even some tractor has no rear hydraulics at all, then he can use the hydraulics from his front end loader, just need an extended hoses.
