5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

[Spindifferent]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

I was just thinking about that actually - I do need to walk the property more, but it seemed relatively flat and even. That said, its not "a lawn" definitely more a natural field. My thought was maybe we cut the front 1.4 with a riding mower but use a tractor with one of those tow-behind mowers for the back 2-ish acres....The "pasture" doesn't need to be manicured, just kept low enough that its tidy. Perhaps We can borrow something like you suggest and see what it takes.

A riding mower around the house and a tractor with a shredder/bushhog/brushhog for the pasture is the strategy that I use. Have 2.5ac around the house and 4ac in pasture. Use a Deere X584 and a Deere 3520 for these, respectively. My pasture has a fair amount of bumps and holes, and the bigger 3520 tractor handles them well.

Another factor to consider is the thickness/height/density of the grass you will be mowing. As thickness/height/density increase, the need for a larger more capable engine and transaxle increases.

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

Why not split the cost with him? If he's offered to buy a lawn tractor, might as well buy something that will last.

So you have 4 acres to mow, at some point you will have a horse on the 2.5 acre pasture so you won't need to mow that but a few times a year?

If your left with mainly 1.4 acres to mow regularly a 48 in deck should do fine.

Personally I think you should start your hunt in the X3xx (K57 trans) line or x5xx (K72 trans) line, dealer models are normally best and have heavier decks. A Kawasaki engine will be better than a B&S or Kohler.

I might also suggest to search the Husqvarna GT48DXLS (K66 trans) on here.

Having a separate tractor and lawn mower is the way to go I think. There's not a tractor out there that's good at mowing and tractor stuff. Saves hours on your tractor also.

I mow 2 acres with my 54in deck in a little under 1.5 hours, your looking at 3-5 hours with 48in or smaller to mow the whole 4 acres, that's a lot of mowing, best to get as big of deck as you can.

 

[mapper]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

Treozen, are you on bottom land or rocky prairie out there, it can make a big difference in how thick and tall your grass will be. A lot of the ground around south Puget Sound is ancient ice age moraine which can be about 90% rocks and a small amount of course sand, sparse grass and camus lilly is about all that will grow on it. If disturbed it is really hard to get it smooth and flat without bringing in top soil.
Your soil type can make a huge difference in what will work well for you in both mower and larger tractor.

 

[Treozen]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

Why not split the cost with him? If he's offered to buy a lawn tractor, might as well buy something that will last.

That would be the most logical solution, but we've tried that sort of thing before and generally it ends up more complicated....like the time my wife's car got totaled in a parking lot and despite the fact she had it covered, he went out and surprised her with "the exact same car" except that it was missing half the options - we paid for it, and it was a nice gesture but sometimes he just gets a whim and BOOM...something shows up....regardless of what you've discussed.

So you have 4 acres to mow, at some point you will have a horse on the 2.5 acre pasture so you won't need to mow that but a few times a year?

Sort of common misconception actually....horses really only want to eat grass that's 6-inches or less - longer than that and they'll either ignore it or trample it over. If their only source of food I bet they'd eat it eventually but we'll have them on a more controlled diet - otherwise you get fat horses.

Personally I think you should start your hunt in the X3xx (K57 trans) line or x5xx (K72 trans) line, dealer models are normally best and have heavier decks. A Kawasaki engine will be better than a B&S or Kohler.

I might also suggest to search the Husqvarna GT48DXLS (K66 trans) on here.

Having a separate tractor and lawn mower is the way to go I think. There's not a tractor out there that's good at mowing and tractor stuff. Saves hours on your tractor also.

I agree with the separate tools for sure, just need to figure out which. Might be cheaper and time saving over the years to buy a black-top machine and buid a parking lot ;-)

 

[Treozen]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

Treozen, are you on bottom land or rocky prairie out there, it can make a big difference in how thick and tall your grass will be. A lot of the ground around south Puget Sound is ancient ice age moraine which can be about 90% rocks and a small amount of course sand, sparse grass and camus lilly is about all that will grow on it. If disturbed it is really hard to get it smooth and flat without bringing in top soil.
Your soil type can make a huge difference in what will work well for you in both mower and larger tractor.

I'm not sure what the make-up is, I haven't been able to spend ant time looking at the land in detail, its not ours yet for sure. I did take note that the grass looked medium-thick with broad leaves and seemed consistent in terms of coverage over the entire area. I believe the whole 4.5 acres was wooded at one point, though its been probably 70 years.

 

[jenkinsph]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

Thanks everyone for the replies.




I'm a bit surprised that the Massey 1700 series is thought to be too small - I know its not a big tractor, but I thought it was good enough to dig post holes, move manure, do some grading and maybe dig out an arena footing (backhoe). I had thought about getting a 40-50 HP tractor, but used if I could find one.

That was my mistake I read it too fast and was thinking GC 1700 series. The 1736 looks like a good choice imo.

 

[Treozen]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

That was my mistake I read it too fast and was thinking GC 1700 series. The 1736 looks like a good choice imo.

No, you had it right. I was thinking GC1720 TLB - they really seem like capable little tractors, but I'll need to do more research. If I could find an older low-hour bigger tractor I might do that.

 

[Deere Dude]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

The size of deck sort of determines the size of machine you may need. For me I wouldn't cut anything unless I could use at least a 60-62" deck. Unless you can cut a property in less that 2-3 hours it will be painful.

I had used a 60" deck in the 90s with a 20+HP JD garden tractor. I got a smoken deal on a new smaller JD with a 54" deck, cab, and some other goodies. It was about the 300 size of John Deere garden tractor. I pushed my 60" deck in the corner and started to use the 54" deck exclusively on maybe 2 acres. 1.25 flat and .75 on a hill and many trees. Both were hydrostatic driven and full hydraulic controls and both were pretty nice tractors.

After mowing 3-4 times with the smaller decked tractor I got rid of it and went back to the 60" deck tractor and have had roughly that size ever since. But a 62" deck is our trim tractor now.

The reason I got rid of the smaller one is because it seemed to take forever to mow the same piece of property. Six" don't seem like much but it really seems to slow the process down to where it get to be a pain to mow and I can't imagine that much lawn with anything smaller. Get a 60" deck on whatever brand you decide. 2 hours mowing is getting to be to much time.

 

[al3]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

Good luck figuring out the mower part of the equation. It drove me crazy and still not sure I picked the appropriate unit.

Agee with the conclusion if you’re not budget constrained, separate mower and tractor is the best approach. Mowing under/near/around the typical lawn obstacles is the primary reason I have both. Tractor gets used for a lot of different task, some which having a deck suspended underneath isn’t good. Wrestling with installing and removing a mower deck quickly make finish mowing a job better left to a dedicated unit. That said, the quality of cut my compact gives is better than the mid-level dedicated mower I use.
If you start considering CUTs and Sub CUTS, look at stuff like how much you’ll need to lift (square/round bales, pallets of feed), transport, storage, CAT 1 vs other hitches, HP needed to drive your desired brush hog and that might help you narrow in on a solution. Required FEL lift capacity often drives the solution IMO
While on active duty I once owned a rural property that had previously housed three horses----something like 3.5 acres. One pretty decent slope that had both lawn and pasture on it. I mowed it all using an 11hp single cylinder B&S geared tranny Craftsman for 5 years, cutting the pasture areas 3 times each season……… Still use that unit for my rough finish mowing areas today……

 

[vts5]

Re: 5 acres of mixed ground - What "little Deere" do I need ( D155, S240, X330)

Sounds like we have a similar(ish) property, ours is 6.5a with some hills/paddocks and trees as well. We currently have the D140 with the 48" deck, since that was about what we could afford. It works OK, but it does take a while, especially in the spring, for cutting down pasture once the horses have been in there. Once you get into summer, the slow growth makes it pretty manageable. Our guys are out on grass all day, but man do they get super picky.

One main thing for us, is that we can't go bigger than 48", unless you are going to have huge gates into your paddocks. We have 8' gates and rests for our gates to prevent sagging, and it's a pretty tight fit with the 48".

I do constantly worry about the trans on our tractor though and one day I want to get an x384 just for the peace of mind, but that probably won't happen.

That being said, we've used ours now for over 70 hours and haven't had an issue with it. When we first moved in there was grass taller than the tractor and it still mowed it down with a few passes (discharge and only using 1/4th of the width, but still).