We will plant some bare root trees every year along with some fencing, so I understand that I will need a post hole digger. Of course front end loader with quick detach bucket. We use ibc totes to collect rain water so it would be nice to have a good set of pallet forks to move the water totes around to water the trees. We have a very large garden and several raised garden beds. I will probably also be looking at a tiller, just not sure about forward or reverse type tillers. I'm also more so just wondering what I should order my tractor or have the dealer install for me at time of purchase. Attachments I can pick up as needed.
Sounds like a great tractor and a welcome partner for your place. We have planted a lot of trees here in the years since enduring a 500 year flood right up against the house. At that time - flood time - we had a very nice heavy powerful compact 33 hp tractor, which I just loved for doing puttering work on the property But it quickly became apparent that it just wasn't big enough to deal with all the clean up and daily moving of downed trees, rocks, and endless buckets of wet debris. . we had to go bigger.... and then bigger again.
Just so you know, a 20 to 30 hp size compact will put an empty IBC tote onto a trailer or back of a PU....but a full ibc tote weights nearly what that size tractor does. Even if the FEL could lift that weight, it would be an even bet which one would go up - the tote or the tractor.
And keep in mind that when manufacturers quote max lift, that's with everything stationary and counterbalanced. Moving even a few feet can be tricky at anything close to max lift. For example, tractors only have brakes on the rear wheels. When you lift a lot, not only is traction to the rear wheels reduced, but so is side stability and braking.
If it helps you to figure what you need in a tractor/FEL, figure that you can safely transport something less than half the max weight that the FEL will lift. That's if the weight is in the back of the bucket..... If held farther out in front via forks, then the comfortable weight will be quite a bit less.
The same goes for a tote on a trailer. You don't want the trailer+tote to weigh as much as the tractor does.
Please consider putting the tote in your pickup and enjoy using that nice compact tractor for things within its capability.
On the post hole digger, my compact wouldn't handle a normal size post hole digger - that is, it wouldn't lift it high enough to get the tip of the auger above the ground. I tried several tricks to get the post hole digger to work but then found that the 3pt hitch didn't really have enough pulling force to pull the auger out of the ground when it went down over half it's depth. You may want to try that out for yourself before buying a post hole digger. I ended up buying a 3pt. backhoe, and later a frame-mounted backhoe. It was the hoes that finally solved the problem of digging in our soil.
Any tractor is wonderful, but if you have a choice I'd say to get yourself enough tractor at the beginning, and expect that the more you spend on the tractor, the less $$ experimenting you will do finding the right implements. And don't be afraid to involve the dealer.
Most of the rural dealers seem willing to have customers try out the implements. Or maybe I've just been lucky.
rScotty
