New Disc Mower

[Soggy Bottom Outdoors]

I'm shopping for a new 8 foot 3 point hitch disc mower. Not a heavy duty model just a regular one. I have Case/IH, New Holland, Deere, Frontier, Kuhn, Vermeer, Kubota/Vicon, Enrossi, MF/Hesston/Agco, Farm King dealers all within 50 miles. What would be your choice and why? Some may be the same just different colors.

 

[Farmer495]

I've been running a New Holland HM235, bought it new in 09. It's a "regular" duty mower, not the "heavy duty"

NH still sells it new, the HM236 is the 6 disc "8 foot" version. I believe Sitrex makes it for NH and CaseIH did sell them as the MDX41 etc.

I have no real complaints with it, been a good mower. Local NH dealer has all service items I've needed. I'd buy another one.

If I were to buy new today, I'd consider Kubota, mainly due to local dealer.

When I was shopping I considered NH, CaseIH, MF & Kuhn, all had similar mowers and pricing at the time in the "regular" category, bought NH since it was on the lot, rest had to be ordered in at the time.

 

[Soggy Bottom Outdoors]

Good to here from you "495".I hope this post finds you warm, dry and well fed. I have heard good things about the modern NH mowers but my local NH dealer is less than great parts and service but my CNH dealer is exceptional. Do you know who makes the Kubota mowers?

 

[Soggy Bottom Outdoors]

Well just wondering if there are any folks blessed with better then average math skills? How much more hay(in acres) would I have cut between a 7-8-or 9ft disc mower in a 10 hr day? All things being equal, same tractor, same ground speed/rpm, same field. Need someone to double check my math. So if in my little puddle jumper I cut at 3.5mph. That's 18480 ft in an hour, times a 7 ft mower is 129360 sq ft or ABOUT 3 acres per hour. For a 8 ft it's ABOUT 3.4, and 9 ft is ABOUT 3.8 acres an hour. So is my math on or did I miss a variable?

 

[Farmer495]

Good to here from you "495".I hope this post finds you warm, dry and well fed. I have heard good things about the modern NH mowers but my local NH dealer is less than great parts and service but my CNH dealer is exceptional. Do you know who makes the Kubota mowers?

NH & CIH are the same mower, so if service is better at one, easy choice, keep in mind parts are the same

Kubota makes their own mowers via their Kverneland factories. Plain Disc Mowers | Kubota Canada

 

[Farmer495]

Well just wondering if there are any folks blessed with better then average math skills? How much more hay(in acres) would I have cut between a 7-8-or 9ft disc mower in a 10 hr day? All things being equal, same tractor, same ground speed/rpm, same field. Need someone to double check my math. So if in my little puddle jumper I cut at 3.5mph. That's 18480 ft in an hour, times a 7 ft mower is 129360 sq ft or ABOUT 3 acres per hour. For a 8 ft it's ABOUT 3.4, and 9 ft is ABOUT 3.8 acres an hour. So is my math on or did I miss a variable?

Keep in mind you have less productive mowing time with a smaller mower if you have to make lots of turns where you have the cutter bar out of standing crop. (does not apply if you can drive in a big circle and never stop mowing)

You can also mow around 5 MPH easy enough, 3.5 would be slow! I've mowed 8 MPH, tractor and mower will do it, but I like reaction time if the cutter bar kicks back.

I only do small amounts at a time, usually 10-12 acres, with most fields being small & irregular shapes to make up the total acreage. "7 footer" mows fast enough, I plan for 3 actual acres an hour mowing at 5 MPH in my scneario.

I have enough tractor to run a 9 footer easily, but time savings not worth the upgrade when I have a perfectly good one user mower in the shed.

Other factor is how many acres do you need to cut at a time versus what you want to spend. Bigger mower = bigger money.

 

[Farmer495]

You can price mowers on CaseIH to get an idea if bigger is worth it.

My prices are List in CDN $$$$ so your numbers should be lower, but it's base price $12929 MDX21 (4 disc) $14339 MDX31 (5 disc) and $16003 MDX41 (6 disc)

$1410 or $1664 for an extra disc.

 

[Soggy Bottom Outdoors]

I appreciate your response, "495" but considering my Kentucky hillside hayfields and the sinkholes, gullies, stumps, and trees and odd shaped fields I mow around I'm okay with 3.5 MPH. I am one of those people who don't "pickup" to make a turn and mow the "corners" at the end. I do "pickup" to move from one odd spot to another. Looks like I would gain about a hour to hour and half between a 7 ft and 8 ft mower. Not much gain.

 

[Farmer495]

I appreciate your response, "495" but considering my Kentucky hillside hayfields and the sinkholes, gullies, stumps, and trees and odd shaped fields I mow around I'm okay with 3.5 MPH. I am one of those people who don't "pickup" to make a turn and mow the "corners" at the end. I do "pickup" to move from one odd spot to another. Looks like I would gain about a hour to hour and half between a 7 ft and 8 ft mower. Not much gain.

I agree you might save an hour or so with a bigger mower, that is what my math was too.

I will mow real rough and tight areas are 3 MPH or so, especially if I have to make left hand turns.

Other thing going 3.5 MPH, you are then able to make perfect 90 degree corners and not miss a blade of grass, so won't have to cut corners out later either.

I used to do that to open fields up when I ran it on the smaller nimble 2wd tractor years ago. Harder to do at faster speeds with a larger 4wd utility.

 

[Soggy Bottom Outdoors]

Good conversation. Let me ask you this. Some disc mower models I've seen have height chains with them. A short chain running from the tractor end of top link pin to one of the mower hitch pins. The purpose is for the chain to carry the weight of the mower while mowing and not the actual 3 point hitch. Have you used one? Ever thought you needed it?

 

[Farmer495]

Good conversation. Let me ask you this. Some disc mower models I've seen have height chains with them. A short chain running from the tractor end of top link pin to one of the mower hitch pins. The purpose is for the chain to carry the weight of the mower while mowing and not the actual 3 point hitch. Have you used one? Ever thought you needed it?

The main advantage is for a tractor that the 3pt settles, it prevents the 3pt from dropping too far on it's own.

If your 3pt is strong and doesn't move, you might be able to run without it.

I still use the height chain anyways. I have multiple top link pin holes, I run the top link so it's on top and use another pin in lower hole for the height chain. I set the 3pt sway bars tight too.

I set the 3pt so the chain is taking some weight, but not all of it. If you try to have it carry all the weight it try to pull the mower slightly to the center of the tractor and the mower will balance on that 3pt arm. Doesn't really stop the mower from working, but it messes up the geometry of the hitch.

The chain also stops operator from lowering the mower too low and also makes it easy to make sure you set the mower the same height every time.

Worse case the mower drops too far and the PTO shaft hits the drawbar and does damage.

 

[kirkawilson]

Is anyone using a drum mower instead of a disc mower? Good & bad points?

 

[Soggy Bottom Outdoors]

I've never used one or seen one work. Don't know anyone that has one.

 

[Farmer495]

Is anyone using a drum mower instead of a disc mower? Good & bad points?

Never used one, most drum mowers on this side of the pond are the smaller ones, 5.5 foot cut. They are way cheaper than a disc mower and probably the best bet for a small farm wanting a new mower economically.

My opinion is if the design was better it would be the most common type of mower system, but it isn't. All the largest ag mowers are disc.

 

[5030]

Not sure why anyone would buy a disc machine without conditioning rolls incorporated into it. Makes no sense to me.

 

[Farmer495]

Not sure why anyone would buy a disc machine without conditioning rolls incorporated into it. Makes no sense to me.

Trend seems to be going the other way now, at least here, rubber rolls, steel rolls and finger tine conditioners were very common here years ago, a straight disk mower was hard to find compared to the conditioner machine.

When I was shopping I had been to every dealer of all colors in a 2-3 hour radius of home and only one had a disc mower in stock.

Now almost every dealer has one or morel on the lot.

Most people are wrapping bales around here now, so conditioning no benefit anyways. Farmers are going from discmower conditioners to butterfly disc mowers, or just straight disc mowers. The discmoco was mainly to save raking, you'd bale direct off the mower windrow.

Now the big guys cut in swathes and use the large twin basket rotaries to make one large windrow for the balers.

I've never had an issue making hay with no conditioner. I had perfectly dry hay 8 hours after mowing one day last summer, 100% perfect conditions. Normally need 24 hours min decent hot dry windy weather.

Price went nuts on machinery too, a disc mower conditioner was $20k more than a straight mower the same size at one time.

 

[Soggy Bottom Outdoors]

In my area of Kentucky and Southern Indiana that I'm most familiar with straight disc mowers out number disc mower conditioners probably 15 to 1. These are made up largely of small cattle operations averaging about 25 head. The disc mower has mostly replaced the sickle bar mower but the main tractor on these farms is still the 40-50HP units. May not have enough juice to handle a conditioner unit on hillsides. Also the main hay crop is by far Kentucky 31 fescue, along with Orchardgrass and Timothy with some Ladino and Red clover. These are not hard to dry as compared to alfalfa, sorghum-sudan, or a cereal grain for hay.(wheat, rye, oats). It's difficult to work the equation that; More $$ in equipment = better or more hay=more pounds of beef=more dollars in your pocket.

 

[eagle628]

Most large dairy farms, which are the primary market for hay and forage equipment in my area, do little to no dry hay. If you're putting up five or ten thousand tons of silage and maybe a hundred tons of hay, spending the money to buy and maintain a conditioner isn't worth it. You either just buy the hay, or wait for the really good July/August weather when you can dry it even without conditioning. Guy I know had two Kuhn 11.5' mocos and traded one on a 17' straight disc mower, figured he'd use the other moco as a backup and when he wanted to do dry hay. He discovered for the amount of hay he made the efficiency of the bigger mower outweighed any advantage from the conditioner, so the moco sat in the shed for three years and didn't get used once until he traded it on a second 17' disc.

There are certainly still some buyers for conditioner machines, but the move away from them in the last 5-10 years or so has been dramatic.

 

[5030]

Not here and I sell every round I make and it's sold a year in advance. Only thing I keep back is what I feed my steers.

Been that way for 6 years now and no end in sight. Sure is nice not to have to deal with idiots.

 

[Gee Ray]

Well just wondering if there are any folks blessed with better then average math skills? How much more hay(in acres) would I have cut between a 7-8-or 9ft disc mower in a 10 hr day? All things being equal, same tractor, same ground speed/rpm, same field. Need someone to double check my math. So if in my little puddle jumper I cut at 3.5mph. That's 18480 ft in an hour, times a 7 ft mower is 129360 sq ft or ABOUT 3 acres per hour. For a 8 ft it's ABOUT 3.4, and 9 ft is ABOUT 3.8 acres an hour. So is my math on or did I miss a variable?

7 foot mower at 3.5 mph equals 2.673 acres per hour with overlap
8 ...........................................3.055
9 ...........................................3.436

7.....................5.0...................3.818
8.....................5.0 ..................4.364
9.....................5.0...................4.909