FLORIDA: Planting Sand Pears With Kubota B3300SU FEL + BUCKET SPADE

[jeff9366]

It was hot today: 88 degrees in the shade....but there was no shade where I decided to plant one Pineapple Pear and one Kieffer Pear. These are in the family known as Sand Pears in Florida. Sand Pears set a fair crop however the pears remain hard at maturity. Two different varieties are needed for pollination. These two pear trees are planted about eighty feet apart on the grassy lip of a retention pond. My wife makes poached Pear Butter and Pear Preserves from Sand Pears but I planted these to provide fruit for the pet deer within the Riverwalk development.

My tractor is a Kubota B3300SU tractor/loader package: 33-hp / 1,800 lbs. The clamp-on Bucket Spade is from Bucket Solutions in Wheat Ridge, Colorado 80033. The bucket spade weighs 110 pounds and immovably clamps to the bucket with two 1-1/4"-hex-head machine screw torqued pads. In photo #2 you will observe there is plenty of support under the bucket. There is the 4" screw pad on top side of the bucket, the bucket itself and the heavy spade on the back side indirectly receiving the well distributed screw pad pressure. Bucket Spade is built very robustly.

This is an effective tool for digging. It cut through the sod easily and I excavated the two deep planting holes in just a couple of minutes. (Other days it has cut through general scrub growth and Muscadine Grape cores; large Water Oak stumps and associated large Oak roots have defeated the spade, or more accurately, my patience, occasionally.) It was not the time savings.....it was having the tractor and implement do the work on the HOT DAY. The bucket spade is NOT as capable as a backhoe but Bucket Spade cost $369 delivered in February 2012. Much less money than a backhoe, it attaches and detaches in two minutes and requires NO hydraulic line connections....and your 3-point is open for another implement.

Kubota gives the minimum lift capacity for the LA504 loader bucket as 750 pounds. Well, the spade is 110 pounds way out in front, with leverage making it effectively heavier. Put a blade load of wet dirt on the spade and you have quite a bit lift capacity being used due to the leverage. An 1,800 pound tractor w/FEL is about the minimum able to use the tool well. If you have clay or clay and rocks to dig in you would want a larger tractor and heavier FEL.

It might seem the bucket spade is hidden behind the bucket when in use. Not really, it mounts on the lower lip of the bucket and to dig you are pointing it down, so you see where it enters the earth. Generally speaking spade works best inserted at about 45 degree angle, not much more to the vertical. In tough conditions you move the tractor forward in LOW using wheel power to help push the spade in, not 100% bucket hydraulic force.

OPEN LINKS:

Tractor Forks, Bucket Forks, Loader Forks

Homes For Sale - Near the Suwannee River - The Riverwalk of Fanning Springs, FL

 

[Don87]

Nice tool.

But I gotta ask.....Eighty feet apart, that seems like an awfully long distance for pollination, shouldn't it be half that distance at the most?

 

[jeff9366]

According to the tree tags when full grown trees will be 40 feet in diameter. So from outer branch to outer branch it will be 40 feet.
Also, aesthetics partly dictated locations.

 

[Don87]

Wow, I was only finding 20 foot spread on my searches: Tree Details—The Tree Guide at arborday.org

Nassau County Extension Office - Pineapple Pear

I understand the aesthetics aspect, but I would hate to see you lose out on potential fruit to use in the future. Ain't nothing like unwrapping a pear( from the newspaper you wrapped it in), in january and eating it

 

[RobertBrown]

I have been to fanning springs many times, driven through it hundreds of times. I suspect the deer you refer to are south of town not far from Andrews WMA.
I had one of those pear trees. Not really pears, more like squirrel food to me. I would not go to too much trouble as they are susceptible to rot in the wet humid conditions here in Florida.
Seems to me you are a transplant?
Pears don't grow here. Citrus will grow providing you don't have a severe freeze. Sour oranges will grow just fine, they are good for marinating pork occasionally you will find a sweet orange tree but the fruit grown from that seed will be sour.

 

[jeff9366]

A neighbor asked me to excavate a hole for planting a large, potted, ornamental tree in his yard. The hole is about 6' X 6' X 40" - 54" deep.

In order to dig 54" deep, I needed to run the bucket pretty far down into the hole. Without 630 pound Rollover Box Blade on the 3-Pt. Hitch as counterbalance the tractor would have slipped irresistibly into the hole. There is enough counterbalance for the bucket to lift a full spade of wet dirt.

The hole was not quite finished when I snapped the photo.

The Bucket Spade is a really useful FEL accessory. Bucket Spade can accomplish most digging tasks, less narrow trenching and less 4"+ stump excavation.

FEL Bucket is 58" wide.

If anyone is looking for a nice place to live in rural, low-tax North Central Florida, this is IT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzDN3UFfm2A

 

[paulharvey]

Bartlett pears grow in Florida, and are semi self fertile, meaning they will pollinate with other Bartletts, if somewhat ineffectiently. They are hard, somewhat ugly, but tasty. The Unniversity if Florida has developed many fruit trees including peaches, pears, and apples specifically for low chill hours.

 

[jeff9366]

Good eye. Good guess. But no banana. Its a non-fruiting, BRADFORD PEAR.

 

[paulharvey]

Well I would have sworn that there is a Bartlett, and looking it up, Bartlett pear is also called a Williams Pear, and is a fairly broad family of Asiatic pears that represent over 50% of US Pear production.

 

[ddb123]

Jeff9366, I have to ask, what did you do to bend the top of your loader bucket?

 

[jeff9366]

I had to pull 7" tree, suspended in the air, out of the elevated crotch of a larger tree, with 5/16" chain. Chain was attached maybe 54" up the 7" tree base, where I had cut it with my Stihl. Tree rotated up after I cut it.

Somehow, in an unduplicatible way, the 7" tree trunck got under the bucket and wedged under the tractor frame, so somehow, as I backed up, tractor power and leverage were both applied to the bucket lip through chain and 5/16" Ken's Bolt On Grab Hook. Maybe I pushed down with the bucket too.

Note bucket lip bent, Ken's grab hook unfazed.

I'm still not clear exactly how it happened. I was watching the action higher up.

Kubota dealer offered to put some heat on lip and straighten it during 350 hour service. I told them to leave it as is......as a reminder not to be complacent about planning/safety.

Bent lip has no impact on bucket function, just impairs symmetry.

My new camera is a pocket size, point-and-shoot, Sony Cybershot DSC-TX20, Zeiss lens, waterproof, shockproof, 16.2 Mega Pixels, $200 on Amazon. Phenomenal resolution, as you noticed when you zoomed in. However, where I live in rural Florida we have primitive internet speed. It takes 8-10 minutes per photo to upload to T-B-N because each picture file is over a meg, ten times the file size of my earlier Olympus.

 

[Larro Darro]

When I Googled sand pear Florida, this thread was the fourth one down. {It's a small world after all} Judging from the picture they showed, I have been growing sand pears all my life. The cows always got more of them than we ever ate. If there isn't a late frost to kill some of the blooms, the fruit is so heavy it breaks the limbs.

The shovel on that bucket works pretty good. Looks like a real back saver.

And if any of you want to move to Calhoun County Florida, let me tell you, the people are rude, the river is always muddy, the deer all have bad looking racks, the fish don't bite, but the mosquitoes do. {just joking} But we do have enough folks already. When I was a kid, we were the only house on our two mile road. Now there are nearly ten.

 

[jeff9366]

If you give those deer some home-grown vegetables, along with the pears, the racks will grow straight.

 

[Larro Darro]

If you give those deer some home-grown vegetables, along with the pears, the racks will grow straight.

I wish they just ate my pears. I had a few cucumber vines that had grown out of the garden fence. In one night they had all been cropped right up to the fence. And if rosebushes produce nice horns, our deer should have great racks. Sweet smelling too.

 

[ddb123]

Thanks. I was curious. I actually noticed it in the "Do I need a tractor" thread in which you posted a bunch of pictures, but I didn't want to hijack that thread. Nice tractor. I nearly bought one myself, but narrowly wound up with an L3540 instead. Your collection of implements makes me jealous.

I had to pull 7" tree, suspended in the air, out of the elevated crotch of a larger tree, with 5/16" chain. Chain was attached maybe 54" up the 7" tree base, where I had cut it with my Stihl. Tree rotated up after I cut it.

Somehow, in an unduplicatible way, the 7" tree trunck got under the bucket and wedged under the tractor frame, so somehow, as I backed up, tractor power and leverage were both applied to the bucket lip through chain and 5/16" Ken's Bolt On Grab Hook. Maybe I pushed down with the bucket too.

Note bucket lip bent, Ken's grab hook unfazed.

I'm still not clear exactly how it happened. I was watching the action higher up.

Kubota dealer offered to put some heat on lip and straighten it during 350 hours service. I told them to leave it as is......as a reminder not to be complacent about planning/safety.

Bent lip has no impact on bucket function, just impairs symmetry.

My new camera is a pocket size, point-and-shoot, Sony Cybershot DSC-TX20, waterproof, shockproof, 16.2 Mega Pixels, $200 on Amazon. Phenomenal resolution, as you noticed when you zoomed in. However, where I live in rural Florida we have primitive internet speed. It takes 8-10 minutes per photo to upload to T-B-N because each picture file is over a meg, ten times the file size of my earlier Olympus.

 

[jeff9366]

Nice tractor. I nearly bought one myself, but narrowly wound up with an L3540 instead.

I learned to operate a tractor on a used John Deere 750, which my neighbor let me use at will for a year. B3300SU was my first tractor purchase and I have no regrets.

After perhaps 100 hours on the John Deere plus 400 hours on the B3300SU I aspire to a "Grand L", mainly for greater FEL lift, also for a little more oomph with plow and disc harrow. I discussed an L3540 HST with my excellent, close-by Kubota dealer earlier this year, but had an unplanned expense come up. Now the Tier 4 qualified L3560 is a lot more money.....and I am always leery of buying a new design the first year, even an evolved design, as in this case. Maybe, probably, next year.

When I buy, my Grand L will have the narrow, heavy, round-backed bucket.

You like my implement collection, I like your L3540.

 

[jeff9366]

When I Googled sand pear Florida, this thread was the fourth one down. {It's a small world after all} Judging from the picture they showed, I have been growing sand pears all my life. The cows always got more of them than we ever ate.

A good friend has been giving me farmette eggs for five years, in appreciation for the tractor scut work I do for him. Well, the hens are getting older and nearly quit producing eggs during Summer. The local wild Sand Pears came in and he fed the hens a considerable amount of fallen, ripe Sand Pears during late summer. The hens produced eggs like youngsters, as long as the fresh pears lasted. Now production has petered out again, and I have to BUY eggs.

I am expecting herbed, four-hour oven-braised hen soon.

 

[Larro Darro]

A good friend has been giving me farmette eggs for five years, in appreciation for the tractor scut work I do for him. Well, the hens are getting older and nearly quit producing eggs during Summer. The local wild Sand Pears came in and he fed the hens a considerable amount of fallen, ripe Sand Pears during late summer. The hens produced eggs like youngsters, as long as the fresh pears lasted. Now production has petered out again, and I have to BUY eggs.

I am expecting herbed, four-hour oven-braised hen soon.

If he has room in the freezer, he could keep a few gallons of pears, doling them out a few a day. It might keep you and him in eggs longer. Not to mention prolonging the hen's life.

Larro

 

[George2615]

My new camera is a pocket size, point-and-shoot, Sony Cybershot DSC-TX20, Zeiss lens, waterproof, shockproof, 16.2 Mega Pixels, $200 on Amazon. Phenomenal resolution, as you noticed when you zoomed in. However, where I live in rural Florida we have primitive internet speed. It takes 8-10 minutes per photo to upload to T-B-N because each picture file is over a meg, ten times the file size of my earlier Olympus.

Jeff,
I see this thread got revived. Just wanted to say you can download a free pic resizer program to resize your over a meg pics smaller to make uploads quicker. All of my pics are the same 1.5 to over 2meg. I resize them to 100-500kb and they up load much quicker. Just save your pics on the computer then use resizer to make them smaller before uploading.

 

[jeff9366]

This resizer is news to me. Can you provide a LINK?

THANKS!