Spring Mowing Late this Year

[TerryR]

I'm a little late with the spring mowing of our field this year, and it's offering my John Deere 870 all it wants in third gear (2½ mph):

The flail is doing a good job on it. But I'm going to have to get a couple more cans of diesel, as it's going though it faster than usual.

 

[John0829]

The flail is doing a good job on it. But I'm going to have to get a couple more cans of diesel, as it's going though it faster than usual.

I'll bet it less diesel than if you were pulling a rotary cutter...

 

[scootr]

That flail is giving a very clean cut
Think of the fuel as being less than 2 cuts you may have done had you gotten on it early. I have a lower field that grows like crazy, been cut 4 times since January... and the mustard is 2 ft tall again.

 

[TerryR]

I'll bet it less diesel than if you were pulling a rotary cutter...

Actually, I found the flail normally requires at least half again as much fuel as my old rotary.

 

[TerryR]

That flail is giving a very clean cut

It does this time of year. Not so much in the fall when some of those weeds get stiff and the flail wants to bend them over and not cut them. But it does a lot better even then since I replaced the factory belt guard with a chain guard.

 

[scootr]

I have the hammers on mine and it rarely cuts as clean as you showed, do you have finnish cut knives on yours?

 

[Lineman North Florida]

That flail is giving a very clean cut
Think of the fuel as being less than 2 cuts you may have done had you gotten on it early. I have a lower field that grows like crazy, been cut 4 times since January... and the mustard is 2 ft tall again.

Have you ever thought about spraying it with a little herbicide to kill the wild mustard?

 

[scootr]

Have you ever thought about spraying it with a little herbicide to kill the wild mustard?

The mustard is the hardest to kill - I'm afraid the grasses would die as well.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

2,4,D will kill wild mustard and will not harm grass, as always read the label, but it should get it done for you.

 

[TerryR]

Today I was in a different part of the field, grass not as heavy but the terrain offers another challenge:

 

[Lineman North Florida]

Today I was in a different part of the field, grass not as heavy but the terrain offers another challenge:
View attachment 874552

That mower that you are using is doing a really nice job in my opinion, a cleaner looking finish than a rotary cutter.

 

[TerryR]

That mower that you are using is doing a really nice job in my opinion, a cleaner looking finish than a rotary cutter.

I have a few banks to mow, and it's great for that, but I bought it mainly so I could offset it and not run over what I was about to mow with the tractor. With a rotary I got a lot of "popup" from what wasn't cut when the tires crushed stuff down before mowing. Also, the rotary left big windrows rather than spread everything evenly like the flail does. So yes, it's generally a much better cut than the rotary.

When I have to run over un-cut growth the flail does not do a great job of cutting what the tires have run over; not noticeably better than the rotary did.

Even running offset, with growth as heavy as you see in the first two photos, it does in places leave some of the grass six to eight inches long, I suppose because it gets pushed down with the front of the mower and doesn't pop up enough to get cut correctly.

It's worse in the fall when I have some pretty stiff weeds in with grass three feet tall and more -- some of them are left a foot or more tall. It was very bad with the factory front guard made from heavy belting. Now that I've replaced that with a chain guard it's much less of an issue.

I've got the tractor tires set as wide as possible because of the hillsides, so I often don't get to use the full width of the mower while keeping the tires off the un-cut material. That's especially true when I'm on the down-hill side as in the last photo, as the rig crabs as much as a foot down the hill. But on the up-hill side I have to be careful to keep the front tire a foot or so away from the standing material or the crab pulls the mower too far down hill and leaves an un-cut strip.

 

[zzvyb6]

My F-935 72" front deck REAR discharge mower knocks down orchard grass like what you have, while my F1435 72" front deck SIDE discharge stalls because the deck chokes. I believe same motor as yours in both.

 

[charris65]

TerryR, you need at least a 250-gallon diesel tank. I have a 500-gallon tank, so I don't mess with cans of diesel. Just drive up and fill the tank.