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The University of Nebraska tractor test lab isn't an academic lab, they are a product testing lab established by the state legislature to ensure that tractors sold in the state meet the manufacturer's stated claims. You can't sell a tractor over 100 PTO HP there without it undergoing the full...

The University of Nebraska's test lab does exactly that- "FWA" is the term they use for any non-4WD tractor with a driven front axle. I prefer that term too but few would know what I was talking about if I used it.

That is not 4WD, that is MFWD. Sometimes people will refer to MFWD as "4WD" or "4x4" but that is not correct. A 4WD tractor has a front axle setup that provides roughly half of the total traction of the machine. A MFWD axle provides a lot less than half the traction, it provides roughly 15% or...

The original front wheel drive (really, front wheel assist in that case) was hydraulically powered, such as a few 4020 Deeres had. It was not very powerful or efficient, which is why it was dropped in favor of a mechanically-driven axle. Four wheel drive tractors are the center-articulated...

There are good wheel rakes and dinky wheel rakes. The dinky ones like to break welds, the good ones don't. I have used the 10 wheel version of your rake and it's not a dinky one.

It is doable but I would not generally recommend it as it is not hard to have a bale fall off of a set of pallet forks if you are not very careful. There are bale forks, but they are different from loader-mounted pallet forks. The differences are that the bale forks are larger tubular pieces of...

Wheel and bar rakes are pretty simple and pretty reliable, just grease them regularly and don't go so fast that the teeth/wheels bounce up and down and smack the ground and they will last a long time unless you got a real rinky-dink wheel rake. Dinky wheel rakes like to break welds on the arms...

I would recommend following the recommendations of the equipment maker. Generally though a polyurea or lithium grease that has the GC-LB rating can be used for almost everything from PTO shafts to pivot pins to wheel bearings. I keep a case of the (usually red colored) high-temp GC-LB lithium...

Use a low enough gear that you are not going too quickly when you are at a reasonable engine operating speed. Exactly what gear you use depends on the transmission. A loader bucket is not that great at digging, particularly if it does not have teeth on the bucket. Think of more trying to take...

I would recommend a semi-mount cutter unless you either have only fairly wide open areas and find a pull-type unit for cheaper, or your 60 HP Kubota is a full-sized utility unit with maximum front ballast in which case I would use a fully mounted cutter. To be honest, if you have a 6' cutter...

Massey-Ferguson had a bunch of financial trouble in the 1970s and 1980s and underwent several changes of ownership after that. That certainly didn't help them stay competitive, particularly against competition that either kept growing (Deere) or conglomerated to become huge (Case, International...

One can run a generator with a larger nameplate capacity than the tractor can power without trouble, the only issue is that the generator can only be run at the capacity that the engine can power. It would cost a lot more than an appropriately-sized generator though. A 25 kVA generator is huge...

A Deere 4020 would fit that bill very well too. They are still a common tractor to use for haying and bush hogging around here.

They basically evaporated in this region too. I see plenty of the old 100 series and sometimes a few of the 6 and 8 cylinder 1000 series of the same vintage around, but rarely anything newer. I saw one 4700 series tractor moving hay about a year or so ago, and somebody was cutting hay with a...

Fixing a broken MFWD is usually an expensive proposition if it can even be done. There are lots of things to break and sometimes more than one thing breaks. Some things result in a tractor that can still be used if the MFWD is never engaged, some breaks (like a broken hub or axle housing) must...

A cutter will bog down if you stuff too much through it too quickly, regardless of how much engine power there is. Slowing down to first gear is sometimes needed just so the cutter has enough time to shred the material fed into it. I have to do this if I am cutting blackberry thickets next to...

I have a two-pole PTO generator and the generator makes about as much noise as the tractor does, my tractor has a regular single-speed PTO and runs at full rated engine speed for full rated PTO speed. The noise is almost identical in both volume and character to running a NH Discbine with a...

I've used the 10 wheel version of that rake. Adding more wheel pressure will let you get more hay but you will get more stones and dirt and such in the hay. Turning with a wheel rake generally doesn't go well- the wheels absolutely have to keep rotating. Usually turning too sharp ends up...

Grease is made using petroleum and the powers that be have made it well known they do not like petroleum. Thus the companies that make items using petroleum are skittish about putting much money into producing anything with petroleum in it, lest they be stuck with sunk costs in the future-...

Look for a subcompact tractor. There are a bunch of them out there from a lot of manufacturers and they will all have a 3 point hitch and a rear PTO. Examples are the Kubota BX and John Deere 1 series. The only smaller "garden tractors" out there that have the option of a 3 point hitch and a...

The New Holland brand has been bought and sold multiple times, it is now owned by a company called CNH Industrial. CNH has very good support for anything that it made and pretty decent support for most of the equipment that the companies it bought made in the past. Their old equipment parts...

The thing they are afraid of is that it will take some significant engineering costs to make the design modifications to convert an existing diesel engine design on gasoline, and more costs yet to come up with a new gasoline engine design. They worry that the governments will carry through on...

The Deere dealer would have done a better job if they quoted you a price on the 5045E which is a little larger than the Mahindra, rather than the 4052M which is a little smaller. The 5045E is a noticeably simpler and less expensive tractor than the 4052M and matches up to the Mahindra in price...

Foreign tractors today are a lot different of an issue than foreign cars in the 1970s. The domestic auto industry in the 1970s suffered because the various government emissions regulations introduced in that time period with little forewarning, two fuel crises, and the poor Malaise Era economy...

A gasoline engine is usually a lot simpler than a diesel engine. That lawnmower probably has a simple air-cooled carbureted engine with a magneto firing the spark plugs. Even if it's an EFI lawn mower engine (which should burn noticeably less fuel than a 50 HP diesel tractor if the tractor is...

The reason the Workmaster 50 is much less expensive than the Deere as it is a simple full-sized ag utility tractor while the Deere 4044M is a not all that simple compact. The compacts from both makers are noticeably more expensive than their more basic full-sized ag utility tractors of anywhere...

A dealer taking on a trade of a piece of equipment runs the risk of not making the amount of money they want to make in the time frame they want to make it. The dealers have a harder time judging demand on a lesser-known piece of equipment compared to one of the well-known brands since fewer of...

87 octane without ethanol may or may not be available where the OP lives. Here in Missouri it is not legal to sell anything other than 91+ octane premium gasoline without any ethanol in it- all 87 and 89 octane gasoline must have some ethanol in it. The best information I can find is that LA...

There isn't that much alcohol in regular unleaded, it is no more than 10%. The issues with materials incompatibility show up at higher concentrations, usually 25% or more. Basically when you get to the point where you have to change jetting is when you may start to have issues. We're dealing...

I would say a 5' box blade would be a better choice than a 6' box blade. That would still be wider than your tractor as you noted the width is 55". I had a little Massey-Ferguson tractor in the past that was very close in physical size and dry weight to your Kubota, and it was also an MFWD unit...

My educated guess is IH simply wanted it run on regular road gasoline. The octane rating on the pump was different in the '60s, it was the research octane number like most of the rest of the world continues to use on their gas pumps. The octane number you see on the pump in the U.S. today is...

The "Ignite" brand name looks 100% like what some doofus MBA wearing a blue suit three sizes too small and with a stubbly beard that took six months to grow would come up with. The only question is whether the brand name idea came from an under-35 doofus MBA who got the idea from what they did...

There are huge differences between electric (corded) and battery-powered tools and pieces of equipment, they should not be grouped together. I have had good experiences in using electric tools and equipment as long as they are used within their limitations of needing to be close to electrical...

You might try to talk to the parts counter at a dealer that sells Kuhn and see what they can pull up. I am a little surprised that the Deere dealer was not helpful with parts as any major dealer I've gotten parts from including Deere can pull up far better parts diagrams and listings and such on...

The most likely cause is chaff built up on your grille or on the radiator. Shredding tall grass at least around here releases a ton of chaff and I generally have to go clean off the grill and the radiator every few hours when doing this or the temp gauge will climb. A leaf blower is an excellent...

I do not have this particular disc mower. The mower you have should be a Kuhn GMD20 painted green, and since Deere didn't make it, maybe somebody who has a Kuhn will chime in now that you let us know what the issue is.

What questions do you have?

That is why I recommended a skid loader, a brush cutter on one of them mounts to the loader arms and sits right out in front of you. You could mount a skid loader front brush cutter to a compact or smaller utility tractor's loader as well, but a skid loader makes a whole lot more hydraulic flow...

Most of the work you said you are going to be doing is cutting trails and lifting objects, have you thought about a skid loader instead of a tractor? They sit lower, are more maneuverable, and you can get an air-conditioned cab for one, and it's better protected than a tractor cab. A hydraulic...

Gasoline tractors largely went away because they used a larger quantity of a more expensive fuel than diesel tractors did back in the day when both were still available. Anybody who's run a later six-cylinder gasoline tractor like a Deere 4020 and then it's diesel equivalent will vouch for that...

That looks like homemade running gear under that wagon with the hubs coming from an automobile. That would explain the "slapped together steering" and the drum brakes on the hubs. Backing up a wagon is a lot different than backing up other implements or trailers as the tongue steers the front...

I've never heard of the Italian sickle cutter nor the company that made it before. I've seen more than a few used New Holland 451s around though. NH also made the 456 which is basically the 451 on a drawn caddy, that would solve the hookup issues as you just pull it with a drawbar rather than...

Hey, we have you beaten on that one as there is a ditchweed dope "dispensary" on about every street corner here. You can pull up to about any stoplight with your windows down and smell somebody smoking that crap, or go into any store and pass by somebody just reeking of it. It's kind of spooky...

That is probably tire sealant instead of foam. Tire sealant will turn into black goo if exposed to air, such as if the valve stem or core leaks. You will also be unable to add air to the tire if the valve stem is sealed with tire sealant. A foam-filled tire would be hard as a rock rather than...

I try to get all of the consumables I think I might need over the winter or in the spring well ahead of hay season. The only thing I have had any issues getting this year was small square baler twine since the baler only really works well with 7200 sisal. Once I found some I bought plenty. Last...

The laws are technically on the books but do not appear to be enforced. I would be very surprised if everybody hauling 5' bales two across gets an oversize permit, and I have yet to see a single oversize load ticket get written in the entire county in the years I've lived here (the paper...

A/C does make people soft. People get used to the temperature they are around on a daily basis. I set the thermostat in the house so that I don't feel hot or cold when I am inside, it ends up in the upper 70s in the summer and the middle 60s in the winter as I spend a lot of time outside...

You sure can haul 5' wide bales legally using a trailer without any special permitting, lots of people use these to haul 5' wide bales: In Missouri you are technically required to get an oversize permit to haul a load greater than 8' 6" wide. The laws allow for an annual blanket permit for...

The round baler even with a full bale in the chamber is going to be a lot lighter than a small square baler, thrower, and a full throw wagon full of bales. I don't know how heavy a Ford 552 is but the 5x5 version of the baler I have would weigh about 6500-7000 pounds with a full bale in the...

All cabbed tractors eventually get the "open the doors A/C" as the A/Cs all eventually fail despite pouring a lot of money into them trying to keep them going, and you eventually give up on it. From personal experience, a cabbed tractor with a broken A/C is a lot hotter than an open station...

A 6' or 7' tiller would work fine for that tractor. I would not go any larger. A forward rotation tiller will throw a lot less dirt at you and bounce over rocks a lot better than a reverse rotation tiller will. However, it won't till as well into hard ground. I prefer a forward rotation tiller...

75 HP is enough power to run a 4x6 baler baling dry hay. I've run that size of tractor with a loader and loaded rear tires in front of a baler that size and been fine from a power and traction standpoint on rolling hills of up to about a 15% slope. If the hills were steep, I would want a heavier...

My point was that what features are present or lacking in a D, E, M, R, etc. version of a specific series of tractor has little correlation to what the same "trim level" tractor in a different series has or lacks for features, and that in some cases people are not even comparing the different...

All 2 series machines are 2R models, there are no 2Ds, 2Es, 2Ms, or any other letter. That is the same with anything 7 series and larger, there are only "R" variants. The only "D" suffix Deere currently sold in the U.S. is the 3D, although Deere used to sell 5Ds and 6Ds here in the past. There...

You can bale with one person if you use a thrower, bale basket, or accumulator. You can also do it with one person if you drop them and then come back with a stacker, stack wagon, or accumulator grapple. Using your wife to stack bales is almost certainly going to be a very poor idea unless the...

Making crap hay is easy, just bale whatever trash is growing in a field in late August or September after doing absolutely nothing to that field except for letting cattle graze it or combining it for fescue seed. Weather is not really a problem, the hay will eventually dry enough to bale if it's...

I see what you did there...

There are a lot of other QAs out there that I have not used so I can't comment on them, such as Bush Hog QA, Westendorf QA, Deere's original 2xx series utility tractor QA, and the now no longer offered Deere 600/700 QA. You can buy new basic attachments like buckets, pallet forks, and bale...

That looks somewhat similar to what Bush Hog or ALO used for their QA setup but those never became very popular as QAs so even if it was a match, I would convert to another QA. You can do that by pulling the four pins that connect the QA carrier to the bucket rod cylinder ends and boom pivots...

The Deere equivalent to the Workmaster line would be the 3E, the 3R would be more the equivalent to the Boomer 35 and 40, and the 4M/4R would be the equivalent to the Boomer 45/50/55. Deere also makes the 3D which is the same size as the 3E and 3R and has a gear transmission but no live PTO, so...

Tubes were generally not used on fluid filled tubeless tires even with calcium chloride back in the day when calcium chloride was the fluid of choice. The main reasons there were tubes put in tubeless tires with calcium chloride were they put in a tube because the tire carcass leaked when run...

What you need to ask for is an oil meeting a certain specification to make sure you get the right oil for your specific piece of equipment rather than just "transmission/hydraulic fluid." That specification usually is a manufacturer certification specification such as JD J20C but may also be an...

Most tractors except for some of the very first ones to have hydraulics use the same fluid in the transmission and the hydraulic circuits. Even on a gear transmission unit this hydraulic fluid is used in several other expensive parts, such as wet clutch packs, wet brakes, the power steering...

Follow the recommendation of the manufacturer. Intervals for changing hydraulic oil varies widely and is machine-specific and fluid-specific. In general hydraulic oil used in hydrostatic drives or other hydraulic motors has a shorter drain interval than hydraulic oil used in other equipment. The...

I carry one of the 2 1/2 gallon water fire extinguishers that looks identical to Hay Dude's in case of a round baler fire. I have not had a fire but I know two people who had equipment fires. One was a combine where the engine compartment caught fire while combining soybeans. There was an...

How much ballast is needed depends on the tractor and loader and varies widely. For example, a 60 HP cabbed MFWD Deere 5055E/5060E with the 520M self-leveling loader is recommended to have at least 3087 pounds on the 3 point as ballast if there is no rear axle weight. This decreases to "only"...

^ This is the key right there. This will also make life a lot easier when reconnecting the coupler the next time as float bleeds off all of the pressure. If the valve doesn't have float, shutting the tractor off and cycling the valve between extend and retract a few times does the same thing...

The best tip I can give is to not spend a lot on a ballast box, use something inexpensive as a form to make a concrete block of a suitable size and weight. A 55 gallon drum would be fine, so would a homemade plywood box. All the box really has to do is hold the concrete until it cures as you can...

Goats will eat most weeds and brush (they also do eat grass once the weeds and brush are gone, it's clover they won't really touch) but fences need to be very good to keep them in. They also don't eat a whole lot (3-5 pounds per head per day depending on size and such), it would take a lot of...

The topic of ethanol in gasoline nearly always comes up whenever anybody discusses gasoline-powered small engines, particularly small single-cylinder carbureted ones such as chainsaws. The politics and technical implications of ethanol then follows. I see no reason why the technical implications...

It depends. Where I live, the answer is no, premium has no more ethanol than regular and actually may have less ethanol in it. The state mandates 10% ethanol in all gas under 91 octane and anything 91+ octane can have anywhere between no ethanol and 10% ethanol. In practice premium here is...

I am not specifically familiar with that particular rake but I strongly suspect it has 15x4 rims as that's the size Deere and New Holland used on their bar rakes with 15" tires. The 5.00-15 traction implement tires have a diameter of 25.6-25.8", which is very close in diameter to a 195/70R15...

A 50/50 mix of methanol and water is the standard fill in this entire region from what I've been told by multiple different dealers in this region, and also that basically every new wheeled ag tractor gets fluid in the tires. The dealers themselves do not deal with tires, they farm it out to...

The warranty on equipment that is expected to last a very long period of time like a tractor is basically there to handle manufacturing, assembly, and setup defects and such. For example, if a sealed bearing came from a supplier without grease and seizes up after 30 minutes of operation and...

I haven't run a disc mower on a compact tractor with a category 1 hitch and between 30 and 40 HP, but I have run disc mowers on larger tractors and I have run other implements on tractors in that size and power range so I will take a stab at your question as several people above are recommending...

I was guessing at the length/size of the forks in the picture. If they are actually four feet long, then they look a lot like the forks on an old style 3 point round bale fork. Those can be quite robust and heavy. I have one of them with only two forks, a similar-looking square tube frame, and...

The ones I've seen have had the serial number plate on the left side of the machine behind the left 3 point lift pin.

What you made looks a lot like commercially available manure forks or silage forks, although they typically have 6-10 forks/spears instead of four. There are a few different ways those are made, some basically weld several smaller forks to a pallet fork headache rack or use a bale spear frame...

From what I can tell, Indian emissions regs are based on the European emissions regs and a 75 HP off-road diesel engine would have needed to be EU Stage V compliant in 2020 (India calls it "TREM V.") EU Stage V is similar to U.S. EPA Tier 4 but whether or not it is "close enough" is really a...

Far as I know CNH makes their own modular units.

They keep calling for "chance of pop-up showers" here, which if you get one it may dump an inch of rain in 20 minutes and sometimes even hail. The sky has clouded up, the temp has dropped 10 degrees, the wind started to blow, it got dark, stayed that way for 30 minutes, and then blown through...

The state and county highway departments used to use 40-70 HP open station tractors with sickle mowers. The county now uses a 2WD 7210 Deere with a hydraulic boom rotary mower (the county isn't rich) and the state uses Deere 6130Rs with 20 foot Shulte batwings. Nothing like seeing $200k of your...

Traction probably has the most to do with what tires are on the tractor rather than if they are loaded or the tractor has MFWD or not. Loaded industrial tires or even worse, turfs, on a MFWD machine give less traction than air-filled ags on a 2WD in most cases. In my experience front tires get...

Look at the loader masts, the model ought to be listed there. The manual for the 520 and 540 loader (either could fit a 2155) gives the following capacities. - 520 loader, "maximum height" cylinder position: 1980 lb at the pins at 122" height, breakout of 2810 lb - 520 loader, "maximum lift"...

Nope. CaseIH/New Holland uses a modular shaft-driven cutterbar on their Discbines and their "nicer" disc mowers. Everything Vermeer currently makes is modular shaft-driven too, but a different design than CNH uses. Most of the rest are gearbed though.

Let me guess. The guy with the goats probably has only a few kids and put a whole bale in a hay bunk. They promptly pulled all of it out of the hay bunk and only ate one or two flakes' worth until they got full, then trampled the rest. The guy the next day sees the empty hay bunk where he...

I've never seen a Morra, Farmmax, or Fort disc mower unless they were/are actually the OEM on somebody else's mowers, and even then it would only be an older or budget-line model as the major manufacturers either make their own main-line stuff or have another major OEM make it for them (e.g...

Fuel delivery often has a minimum quantity that they will deliver, around here they won't deliver less than 200 gallons. Newer containers are specifically not supposed to be vented as the EPA prohibited vented cans in 2009.

A guy I know has a Bush Hog 3208 pull type and it does not leave windrows. That would be a slightly lighter version of the 3308 you are looking at.

The local farm store carries Double HH linkage parts, their number 22514 category 1 top link has a minimum length of 29" and a maximum length of 39". This may or may not be the same top link mentioned above. The one I mentioned is made in India and has forged ball ends.

I would strongly recommend against using a typical 3 point mount finish mower behind a 100 HP utility tractor on ag tires on yards that average roughly 3 acres or so, for many reasons. I used to mow a yard with a much smaller tractor with a 6' 3 point mounted mower so I speak from experience. -...

Maybe, it's hard to tell as nobody such as Nebraska has done any testing on a remotely similar tractor to yours. If you made me guess, that sounds about right if you are loading up the engine pretty well running a rotary cutter or tiller, but high if you are puttering around doing loader work. A...

I'd guess they would not be much if any better. However, the only zero turn I have that kind of experience with is a commercial unit with serviceable hydrostatic units, which is a very different kind of unit with a much longer lifespan.

Depends on the unit, how it is used, how it is maintained, and what you say end of life is. Other than an antique Deere 110 that occasionally gets run to make a lap around the driveway, I haven't personally run a riding lawn mower in a couple of decades. The ones we had growing up were bought...

You may or may not be able to change the size of your tires. A Kubota L4600 was apparently available in both 2WD and MFWD versions. A 2WD tractor is pretty straightforward to swap in different tires, all you need to do is make sure the tire has at least as much load capacity as what you are...

Windshield washer fluid ranges from basically colored water with a tiny bit of detergent (the +32 F stuff) to about 35-40% methanol and 60-65% colored water (the -20 F stuff), at least here in the U.S. European windshield washer fluid has ethanol instead of methanol as the EU banned methanol...

My tractor came with galvanized linch pins from the dealer and those are excellent linch pins. The black ones are good too. The gold-colored ones stink, they bend easily and the springs are weak. If you want a nut that will never come off of a bolt, forget nylocks. Just get the bolt and nut...

I looked at the implement manufacturer's website and it had some information but not a lot. They mention an 80 HP FWA tractor as a minimum and in the manual it says that the tractor has to be big enough to handle the weight of the implement. Unfortunately they don't list the weight of their...

The main reason people use a tire other than a regular R1 ag tire on a tractor is that the ag tires get the most traction under nearly all conditions and thus are the most likely to tear up soft surfaces like lawns. Any other tire choice on a tractor would nearly always be in an attempt to limit...

Long story short, you would need a plow that can be offset appropriately to let your right wheels run in the previous furrow. A total width of 75" and I am assuming 16.9" wide tires puts your tread spacing at 58" and the centerline to inside of the right tire distance of 20 1/2". You could run...

No, the CaseIH Farmall and the New Holland Workmaster are the same tractor in different colors. The Massey-Ferguson is a different tractor made by a different and unrelated company.

1. I would go larger than a 4 series if you are going to be doing this very often. A 4 series with loaded tires and something much heavier than a backhoe on the 3 point should do okay with a 1100 pound bale if you were careful and went slowly. I have moved round bales that weigh in the 800-900...

I looked at a brochure for this line of tractor when I was looking for a ~75 HP utility tractor a couple of years ago. I didn't see one in person as the nearest dealer was an hour and a half away, and the one tractor they had on their lot was a 47xx if I remember correctly. The nearest place...

Yes, that is done frequently here and works well as long as you are seeding something that will reliably germinate if broadcast, like most grasses and clover. You can broadcast some of the small grains like wheat for a cover crop and it will work too. Going over the field after seeding with a...

All of the 5 series machines, regardless if they are 3 or 4 cylinder, 5E, 5M, or 5R, are turbocharged and aftercooled. It wasn't until you went back to the Tier 2 units that you had turbocharged but not aftercooled engines. My Final Tier 4 5075E certainly has one, it sits right ahead of the...

I suspect you'd stay there only as long as it took you to grab the 3 point lever and raise your implement enough to put your tires back on the ground.

Deere's trim level letters are noted by Deere to be that the earlier the letter in the alphabet, the simpler the tractor, and the later the letter in the alphabet, the more deluxe. "E" comes before "M" so an "E" tractor in the same series is going to be more basic than the "M" model. There is...

A conventional moldboard plow would be your best bet here as breaking ground is exactly what they were designed to do. A field cultivator is a secondary tillage tool, you use this to break up clods and ridges left after a primary tillage tool. Usually a field cultivator is used after a chisel...

You will want a bale spear with its own frame that attaches to the loader carrier after you remove your bucket, rather than something that attaches to the bucket. Your loader should have the JD100-400 QA that Deere still uses on its compact loaders, so it would not be difficult to get a bale...

Moldboard plowing usually works well unless there are stumps or large roots, in which case it will hang up. They handle rocks well unless it's a really huge boulder that is big enough to trip the bottom or stop the tractor. I've turned over plenty of softball to basketball sized rocks with a...

It depends on which of their loaders you are talking about as Deere offers five different QA types across its line of front-end loaders. Some loaders only are available with one type of QA but some are available with a choice of up to three different QAs. A few of their loaders are available...

That vaguely looks like a Case at first glance but I highly doubt it is on further investigation. Case's 3 point mounted plow would be one of the "M" series plows and I have one in my machine shed (3-14 MRB.) The 3 point setup is not what Case used. Case used a flat bar with a lower link pin...

The power required is dependent a lot on the soil. I had run a forward rotating 6' tiller on a 23 PTO HP tractor once in the past. The soil was rocky clay that had been ripped through with a field cultivator before tilling and it was everything that little tractor wanted in trying to run that 6'...

Your tractor burns a half a gallon an hour of fuel based on what you posted above. A five-gallon tank would last you 10 hours. The general figure for annual usage of compact tractors is somewhere in the 60-75 hour per year range, which would be a ballpark of 30-40 gallons per year, or filling up...

The Amish just have somebody who's not Amish drive them to where they need to go. If it's a construction crew, they will have somebody with a 15 passenger van drive them to and from the jobsite every day. I can tell you at least the ones in this corner of Missouri will drive at least 45 miles...

The OP has a 5055E which depending on year and configuration would have a loader with either the JD500, Global/Euro/DIN, or skid loader QA setups. Based on what he said with the lower pins being located higher on the attachment than the loader, his loader has the JD500 QA setup and an attachment...

Essentially all tractor hydraulic remotes have two connectors per remote, one for extend and one for retract. You would connect a single-acting cylinder with only one line only to the "extend" connector on that hydraulic remote. Single-acting cylinders work best with hydraulic valves with a...

Plow it with a single-bottom conventional moldboard plow and pick up any rocks you see that are larger than about billiard ball sized. Let the plowed ground sit for at least a month to kill the grass you plowed under, then disc and drag or use a rototiller to work up the plowed ground into a...

A fertilizer wagon is just a rolling load, so how heavy of a tractor you need depends on how much fertilizer is in the wagon and how flat or not your land is. The spreader you have looks like a pretty typical 5-6 ton spreader, which would weigh not that much more than your tractor if it had one...

The "C" in the API "C" categories is for "commercial," not "compression." The "S" in the API "S" categories is for "service," not "spark." An oil with just an "S" rating will also have the "sunburst" logo containing the words "For Gasoline Engines." Also there are the "fuel economy" API FA-4...

My field will get limed over the summer. The co-op basically said they are too busy with fertilizer in the spring to do any liming. They've also gotten lime trucks stuck in low/wet spots in fields in the spring so they said they only lime in July and August when it's bone-dry out. There are few...

Deere publishes a viscosity vs. temperature chart that lists a bunch of options based on expected air temperature (see below.) 10W-30 would be fine as long as it doesn't get above 104 F or below about 15 below zero. The issue is that the oil has to be a diesel engine oil and not a gasoline...

I did frost-overseed an area that was getting thin over the winter, now I just need for things to dry up enough I can get in the fields to apply fertilizer. I am "on the list" to get lime too but that's probably not in the near future. Fortunately I don't need much nitrogen on the grass-clover...

I usually pasture clip at about 4" or so, the skids are about an inch off the ground.

You don't want anything except for an ag-type tire if you are going through sloppy areas and doing tillage as an ag tire will have much better traction than the other types of tires. The question would really be whether or not you get R-1Ws instead of regular R-1s if you do most of your work in...

The 4.5 slowly crept up from no more than 100 HP in the 6400 to the current 145 HP in the 6145M, the 6.8 went from a maximum of 130 engine/112 PTO HP in the 7600 to now up to 270-297 engine/224 PTO HP in the 7R 270. The 8.1 started out as low as at 155 engine/135 PTO HP in the 7710, the 6.8 in...

The slip clutch will protect the tiller if it is properly adjusted and not seized. If the slip clutch is seized or improperly adjusted and you hit something solid, you may very well break something in the tiller. I would follow the instructions in the tiller's or driveline's manual about...

For a 100 to 500 pound rock, just use the loader bucket and a pry bar/pipe if needed. Depending on how the rock is situated, you can either dig/pry the rock out with the bucket directly, use a piece of pipe or a pry bar to pry it into the bucket, or just roll it into the bucket. I've moved quite...

The tiller I use is a forward rotation and I don't have any issues with it. However, I use a moldboard plow to plow up the soil at the end of the year (usually to plow in a bunch of manure) and then use the tiller to level out the ground in the spring to make a seedbed. That works well. I do not...

A 90 HP utility tractor can be used for haying but most people doing very much of it start with a tractor of around 130 HP and can go up to 250-300 HP if they are running a triple disc mower. It would be too small to run a Discbine or a silage baler, and a lot too small to run a larger disc...

The cooling system should be sized based on the engine's fueling rate as burning fuel generates heat, more fuel = more heat. The two examples I gave have nearly identical fueling rates, so the cooling systems should be very similar. Whether or not they actually are is a different story and has...

The 125 amp circuit is to a house so it follows the 83% rule, you only have to have wire rated for 83% of the amperage on a dwelling. Everything else is 100% or higher.

I would consider running large enough cable to support 200 amps to the house if the utility gave you a 200 amp service at the pole and you are having to put in a new cable run between the pole and your house. 100 amps isn't much for a service for a house these days, particularly with the writing...

I've cut that kind of acreage with 5' and 6' cutters before. It takes a little while but isn't impossible. Usually somebody would do that if they only occasionally have to cut that area, such as pasture clipping once at the end of the year. This is what I do, I cut about 65 acres this way last...

Torque rise today is usually a lot more than 15%. Nebraska changed their testing some in the early 1990s and started to publish engine torque numbers and torque rise between rated speed and peak torque. I'll pick on some tractors I've run that have been tested at Nebraska and have figures...

It's not rare to see broken axles on MFWD compacts and '50s and '60s rowcrop tractors with loaders mounted. One big warning sign that you are overloaded on the front is the rear gets light. On a 2WD tractor you lose traction in your drive wheels so it's not only immediately apparent, but must be...

That's why I always change my own oil. Changing oil and mounting/removing wheels is the lowest rung of mechanical work and a lot of shops and dealerships have the lowest-skilled people doing that work. Sometimes you get somebody who knows something and is "working their way up," other times you...

You would need a full-sized utility tractor to lift 1+ tons with the loader, but if you can borrow something to do that one task, otherwise the things you describe can be done by about any size of tractor with appropriately-sized implements. It will just take longer to do the job if you are...

Generally just a little bit of sugar, occasionally some apples or raisins.

Lifting and moving 1500 pounds with a loader is going to put you in the next size up tractor than a typical 30-35 HP compact that weighs under 3000 pounds without ballast or a loader- you are looking at something the size of a 4 series Deere that weighs just under 4000 pounds without ballast or...

I think Deere actually made the 2.4 four and 3.0 five (really, a 3.1 L) engines themselves. Generally they will clearly say if they get an engine from elsewhere (Yanmar, Cummins, Liebherr, etc.) but these engines just said "John Deere," so I assume they made them. The PowerTech 2.9 is the...

Apparently they do, and they made a four-cylinder version too that they used in the 4x20 compact tractors.

Deere used three different bores and two different strokes for their 300 series diesel engines, and made most of the combinations in 3, 4, and 6 cylinder versions. They had a few more combinations than that when you throw in the gasoline and LP versions with the 3.86" stroke crank. With just the...

The 5083E I've run had a cab rather than being an open station, but it's otherwise similar. 1. Yes. You can choose to use the foot clutch when changing direction if you want though. 2. Yes. The range shift however is not synchronized so you will need to come to a complete stop to change ranges...

I have never and have never seen anybody cut a hay field before they did their first cutting that they baled. Applying fertilizer is what is done to promote growth and yes, that is usually done pretty early. Few run a conditioner as your typical grass hay here doesn't really dry that much...

I discussed both current ("All of Deere's current utility tractors...") as well as older tractors as the discussion is titled "does anyone buy used tractors?" Thus what was offered 30 years ago is absolutely relevant as those are quite a few of the used tractors out there for sale. Deere...

I was specifically discussing utility sized and larger tractors as that is often the smallest tractor where the manufacturer actually makes the entire tractor including the engine. All of Deere's current utility tractors have either the 3029 or 4045 engine, both of which are wet-sleeve engines...

How large/heavy your tractor is and what tires you have on it makes a huge difference. There was a muddy hill where we were cutting down trees and hauling the logs out several years ago. I used several different pieces of equipment during this job and thus got to directly compare how well they...

The funny thing is that the "booster" you would be adding to your fuel is likely just very expensive ethanol in a bottle. Ethanol has a very high octane rating, particularly when blended in small quantities to gasoline. It also is an oxygenate so you will have lower tested emissions, and unlike...

88 octane 15% alcohol gasoline with the blue hose and blue nozzle has been around all year long for many years here in Missouri. Kum & Go and Signal in particular carry it in many of their locations. In fact, I can't remember seeing any grade/type of fuel only being around on a seasonal basis...

I have one of the factory brush guards on mine, the version I have uses expanded metal to fill in the center of the frame like the picture below:

I have been saying this ever since side-by-sides started to become popular about 20 years ago. I've operated a couple of different ones. There's nothing that you can do with them that you can't do with a beater Jeep, beater pickup, or tractor. If you are worried about rutting up an area, put...

Coil on plug setups are actually a noticeable improvement over the earlier electronic ignition setups with conventional plug wires, particularly the later higher-voltage setups. The plug wires usually had a pretty short lifespan with those and the engine would run poorly when a plug wire failed...

The closest I've had to new was a dealership demo unit. Technically it was new as it had never been sold before, but it had been on the dealer's lot for a year and a half and I paid less than what some comparable used machines with noticeably more hours were going for. I can't say a whole lot...

Can't leave loose hay outside here as it's too wet. The only hay bales you can leave outside are round bales that are net wrapped or plastic wrapped. Everything else has to be put in a barn or it spoils. People used to put up loose hay in barns as that's all there was. No reason somebody...

My mower (TM800) should have the same gearboxes as yours but I've never actually had to get into one yet. I would pull up your machine's manual and parts list from the Vermeer website, their documentation is pretty good. The manual does describe how to get into the gearboxes as you need to do so...

My argument was that the 5320 could handle noticeably more weight on the 3 point hitch than a 630 could, and a good chunk of that "noticeably more" was because the 5320 could be much more heavily ballasted on the front than the 630 could be. I absolutely did recommend the 5320 be ballasted.

Somebody generally will be unhappy if they need to do a specific job or run a specific implement and their tractor is too small to do it. However, once you get one that's "large enough" there's generally not much of a hard stop on how much larger you can go, so you have to draw the line...

That one would definitely NOT work on my wife, she prides herself on being resourceful. She has only a handful of pots and pans. We cook nearly everything we eat at home from scratch, including baking over 300 loaves of bread per year. We really only use two iron skillets, one griddle, one...

It depends on exactly what '70s/'80s/'90s tractor you get. Most compacts of that era had production contracted out by the company that sold them, the only major company that sold much in the U.S. then that didn't do that was Kubota. Parts availability on rebranded third-party tractors is often...

The name of the Twitter account that posted this was "Maine Antifa" with a blue checkmark. "Nuff said.

Newer diesel engines are designed to run only on ULSD. The manufacturers would either design the engines to run acceptably on it or get whacked with recall costs to fix what they screwed up. I am much more familiar with off-road diesels than road diesels but have not heard anything about...

The whole mention about the 5320 being a stouter tractor was that it can be counterweighted more heavily than the 630 and thus be able to handle more weight on the 3 point hitch than the 630 can. The 630 can have 375 pounds added to the front of the tractor and then 200 pounds bolted onto the...

Deere's manuals certainly state that oils used must meet certain specifications, but they do not state you must only use JD oils. However, they do allow for extended drain intervals in some circumstances if you do use their products rather than one from a different manufacturer that meets the...

I ran a 6' forward-rotation tiller on a tractor with 23 PTO HP in the past. That tractor had a creeper transmission so I was in the slowest gear it had (I don't think it was even 1/2 MPH), and the tractor was very unhappy with running the tiller. A 5'er would have been a better fit. You...

You should be fine. That setup weighs roughly 2200 pounds based on what you stated. Deere actually recommends using more 3 point weight than that (2867 pounds) for counterweight if you were to install their 520M loader on your specific tractor, so the tractor itself is more than stout enough to...

Adapters from a tractor QA to skid loader QA are fairly common, many manufacturers make them. You don't see them widely discussed here as most tractors discussed here are compacts. The only compacts with a QA that isn't a skid loader QA are some of Deere's units. Adapters weigh a couple hundred...

Row spacing for the potato plow with a single centered shank such as seen in #3 would be the same as the wheel centerlines. That kind of a tool would only be useful on a small compact such as the subcompact Kubota the original poster mentioned. Otherwise you would indeed have to run your wheel...

A potato plow is great for harvesting potatoes, it is surprising how well it works. Aim right down the row and the potatoes just show up in the furrow the plow makes. I plant potatoes several inches deep and then hill them up again usually two times so the potatoes don't surface and turn green...

If you wanted a less-expensive manure spreader, find a used one at a farm auction or in the classifieds. In general they are not too cheap, though, unless they need a lot of work. For 4 horses though, I'd just scoop the manure into a wheelbarrow or loader bucket, drive to where you want to...

I use whatever auger is on the post hole digger, as long as it is at least a few inches larger in diameter than the post so I can tamp the dirt back in around the post. If I was concreting in a post, three times the post diameter would be the correct size. Rarely do posts get concreted here as...

I had a similar experience with mice and the side-exit exhaust of my old JD 110 lawn mower. It had been in a shed at my parents' house for many years before I got it. They had put mouse poison in the shed, and at some point the mice collected the poison and rolled it into balls about the size of...

Galvanized electric fence wire is going to be the closest thing out there to baling wire. A 1/4 mile roll of the stuff lasts a long time if you are not putting it up for electric fencing. I use it for the tension wires on fence braces and corners so I always have some around. I do make small...

Discing up a grassy/weedy field to broadcast-seed a grass pasture doesn't have to be very aggressive or deep. You basically just need to scratch up the surface a little to expose some soil, you do not need to bury residue like you would if you were planting row crops. If you get an inch or so...

The Ford 8N was largely designed around pulling a 2-14 plow, and a lot of them did just that back in the day. Plowing is why the 3 point hitch was originally designed, before that, if a plow hit a stump or a tough patch of soil, the front wheels were coming off the ground. The first tractor...

If the 8N works for what you are using it for, keep it. If not, get a different one. My guess is it won't be too happy running a 6' rotary cutter unless you are just knocking down some weeds, a 5'er was a better size for that 8N. You have very little money in the 8N, it is easy to work on, and...

I have no idea if Mahindra will sell tractors in Nebraska or not. I live hundreds of miles from Nebraska and the few people I know that live up there no longer farm, so I have no clue what the locals there think of Mahindra tractors. I can see Mahindra has not tested any of their tractors in...

That was true back in the days when calcium chloride in water was what tires were filled with. Most of what is used today is methanol and water and a tube is generally only used if the tire requires one. I have seen a bunch of moderate and slow leaks, thorns will certainly do that.

A rotary boom mower would be ideal, and there are some that are 3 point mount so they are easy to remove. I don't know if a Kubota L3800 would be heavy enough to handle one. A sickle will cut some twiggy stuff but it is really made for cutting hay. Same with a disc mower, although if you break a...

Lead spray works well. I got the couple of them that got into a little dirt-floor shed I had a few years ago using that method. Yeah, people would occasionally do that to the town fountain when I was growing up too. That was all fun and games until once the soap broke the fountain's pump...

The University of Nebraska's tests are very useful but only performed on some tractors, and generally not the ones most people here are looking at. The University of Nebraska currently only does its full set of tests on tractors of over 100 PTO HP that are to be sold in Nebraska, per state law...

Almost all of the compacts today are MFWD with non-adjustable axles, the Kubotas you mentioned are the few exceptions that are still available in 2WD. Usually you have to get a full-sized utility tractor for 2WD to be an option. Any adjustment in an MFWD front wheel spacing is due to being able...

If you want to make hay someday, you will want a noticeably larger tractor than any of the ones you listed. However, unless you get some very used/abused and inexpensive old hay equipment and fix it up, you will spend a fortune on equipment to hay only 7 acres. A small square baler doesn't take...

Tractor engines generally don't exceed 2/3 HP per cubic inch (40 HP/L) at the present time, and it is generally only the highest-tuned four-valve engines with something more complicated than a single fixed-vane mechanically-wastegated turbocharger and a single aftercooler. An engine with a...

The sulfur in diesel fuel did give some lubrication to the fuel system. However, there are lubricity tests in the ASTM D975 diesel fuel standard and the fuel companies simply add lubricity additives if needed to their ULSD so it passes the standard. As far as I am aware, the lubricity standards...

The only rototillers that can go to 8" or deeper are the largest and heaviest ones made, which weigh around a ton, are 8-10' wide, and usually cost in excess of $10,000 new. They are very uncommon to find used. A 6' King Kutter or similar rototillers that only cost a few grand new only till...

I take it that you are spreading manure then? I used to see a lot of people spreading manure as a kid, and my family certainly did too, but that was when many people still had both livestock (beef cattle, dairy cattle, and hogs, sometimes chickens) and crops. The people back in the day were...

Everybody else must be doing that too, as both of the local places that do liming are booked out until forever from now due to not having enough lime trucks to get through the backlog of customers.

Some of the local equipment dealers are dealers for Bale Bandit and Bale Baron but I've never seen one of those bale banders actually being used or seen anybody hauling or selling banded small squares around here. There is a Krone dealer locally but the only Krone baler I've ever seen there was...

No, it is a Deere engine, the 3029. They just changed from no EGR and a combination DOC/DPF to EGR and a DPF-less DOC for MY2023. Deere did actually use a few of the 3.4 FPT engines in the 5G specialty tractors, but those were the only FPT-engined Deeres out there. As far as I can tell, Deere...

Yes, the 1022 is the single-axle version. That size was selected as it will pick up exactly two swaths from a 10'-10 1/2' cutter which is what we use. The fields are somewhat bumpy, generally I can't go faster than about 5-6 MPH when cutting. This rake seems pretty solid, we've had it about 10...

Yes, changing the windrow width on that rake does change the raking width. There is a pair of hydraulic cylinders just behind the lift arm that changes the wing angle to narrow or widen the windrow, and they move the other end of the wing in the opposite direction due to how the wings pivot on...

It won't be easy to get usable hay equipment with a budget of $15k for a round baler, cutter, and rake. A 4x5 or 4x6 round baler that's not broken or completely worn out generally starts at $15k around here, although you might get one for closer to $10k if it's a twine only model as nearly...

It depends on the rim. There are some differences between tube-type and tubeless rims, but mostly if the rim isn't airtight (generally due to how the rim was welded together), you must run a tube. If the rim is airtight, you would need to put in the correct size of valve stem and then you could...

There are multiple types of cultivators but I suspect you are probably talking about a row crop cultivator if you mention also needing a planter. These are bought by number of rows they cover and the spacing between the rows (e.g. a four-row planter with 30" row spacing) rather than overall...

The person on top of the hay in the back of the truck looks to be about 80 years old and thin enough a stiff breeze would blow them away.

I'd offer her wages of a pair of boots for a day of work. In all seriousness, it does show that it is still actually possible to do things the way people did in the old days. It also shows how much work they did and how much they got done as well.

I was discussing just the baling process and maintaining a round vs square baler, as the person I replied to was making small round bales that have to be handled manually and stored in a hay barn. Thus, the advantages of handling and storing large rounds vs. small squares do not apply and the...

It depends on what you are cutting and how fast you want to go. Generally a 5' cutter is recommended for that size of tractor but you could use a light duty 6' unit if you are cutting grassy weeds that are not several feet tall. Do not get anything other than a light duty 6' cutter as it will be...

Rakes and sickle mowers take pretty much no power or tractor weight to run. About the only issue you might run into is the really small tractors don't have much ground clearance and they might not do very well wading through uncut hay when cutting, or going over the cut swath when raking. The...