Berta flail mower

[Jens767]

Hi

While mowing along a hedge last week, my Berta again picked up a string of barbed wire from an old fence. That’s one of the risks when mowing in tall vegetation in unfamiliar terrain, but luckily the flail mower is not that sensitive to fence wire. This time there was no damage done, but this is how one of the flails looked after an earlier encounter with barbed wire:



Due to the latest incident I wanted to check the mower thoroughly as I got home, and at the same time give the mower a good wash down. As I noticed the wear on the „Anti-Scalp Skids“, I thought that I would post this little update on the topic.

I got the skids last summer as mentioned in post #74, and since then used them for around 20 working hours. It is of course difficult to tell for sure whether they help or not, but looking at the wear of the skids, I think they do:



The photo is of the right-hand side skid, and it clearly shows that especially the rear part of the skid has taken some abuse. I feel that the flail mower „floats“ better since it got the skids, and it follows the terrain better, leading to hardly any scalping.


Best regards

Jens

 

[Big wheels are better]

Thank you Jens
We have been using our Berta 26" for one season (2019), it is a great machine! We are trying to get away from animal based fertilizers so we are cover-cropping and flailing all our gardens.
We bought our mower directly from EarthTools. It didn't require any leveling adjustment to fit our BCS732. We also used it to clear a path outside our electric fence, worked way better than a regular mower, the weeds took a lot longer to grow back + less places for the bears to hide

The weeds took longer to grow back? Why would the type of mower matter? Did you mow shorter?

 

[Jens767]

Hi Big wheels are better

I have had the same experience as WesKootenay, when it comes to weeds that has been mowed with the flail mower; it actually takes longer to grow back, and I think that it comes from the different ways different mowers works and cuts.

I basically mow in 2 different ways: either I cut the material with the sickle bar mower/drum mower close to the ground, and it is hand raked and removed, or I cut it with the flail mower, and it is left to decompose. The first case is usually very „grassy“ material, and the second one is pure weeds like common bracken/eagle fern.

Here I am mowing up to 6½ feet tall eagle fern with the flail mower a month ago:



When mowing with a well adjusted sickle bar mower especially, you will get a very clean cut, leaving the stems intact and the plant ready to grow again. When mowing with the flail mower however, the stems are more torn apart than actually cut. This leaves a much bigger wound to the plant, and a much larger surface for it to loose moisture. This will set back the plants a lot, and hamper new growth.

It is probably difficult to see on my foto, but just in front of the Berta, there are some stems left standing.

I hope this makes sense?


Best regards

Jens

 

[anomad]

Hi Big wheels are better

I have had the same experience as WesKootenay, when it comes to weeds that has been mowed with the flail mower; it actually takes longer to grow back, and I think that it comes from the different ways different mowers works and cuts.

I basically mow in 2 different ways: either I cut the material with the sickle bar mower/drum mower close to the ground, and it is hand raked and removed, or I cut it with the flail mower, and it is left to decompose. The first case is usually very „grassy“ material, and the second one is pure weeds like common bracken/eagle fern.

Here I am mowing up to 6½ feet tall eagle fern with the flail mower a month ago:

View attachment 3857832

When mowing with a well adjusted sickle bar mower especially, you will get a very clean cut, leaving the stems intact and the plant ready to grow again. When mowing with the flail mower however, the stems are more torn apart than actually cut. This leaves a much bigger wound to the plant, and a much larger surface for it to loose moisture. This will set back the plants a lot, and hamper new growth.

It is probably difficult to see on my foto, but just in front of the Berta, there are some stems left standing.

I hope this makes sense?


Best regards

Jens

That is impressive! I have never cut anything near that tall with my BCS and little DelMorino bush hog.

What purpose do the dual tires serve in your application? I have my BCS set in the widest configuration. I could use more flotation and traction on steep hills. Mowing steep hills I can't get a conventional tractor on is a primary use for me.

 

[jeepcoma]

Ferns are like tissue paper, they just dissolve. It also does a really good job on meatier growth like Japanese Knotweed and small trees. If you can get it to bend over far enough for a blade edge to touch, nothing stands a chance against the mighty flail mower! It's like suspending a wood chipper a few inches off the ground in its destructive power.

 

[Jens767]

Hi anomad

The flail mower is definitely a very impressive implement, and even after 5 years and around 110 working hours with my Berta, I’m still impressed by its performance. People who watch it hard at work for the first time, are always very impressed by the performance of such a relatively small machine. A flail mower is a very power-hungry implement though, and on tough jobs like mowing eagle fern, I have to reduce the working width. My Berta has a working width of 85 cm (34’’), but I usually reduce it to about half of that, and still I need all the 11.7 HP that the Honda GX390 engine will produce at full open throttle! The benefit of this is that everything is passed twice, leaving a very clean job, as you can see.

As I was looking for a 2-wheel tractor in 2011, I sadly didn’t know this wonderful forum and all the information available here, and I didn’t have anyone around me with experience in 2-wheel tractors either

My local BCS dealer made me a very good offer on a BCS 740, and after 14 years and more than 470 working hours, I’m still impressed with its performance

I only use my tractor in the front-PTO mode, primarily for mowing, and I soon realized that the standard 5x10x20’’ wheels were too small, and was sitting too close to the tractor. I got a pair of 6.5x12x23’’ wheels, and they are really making a lot of difference when mowing! I simply use the smaller wheels as axle extensions, to get a wider track width. This has increased the stability of the tractor a lot, especially when mowing on slopes. The increased weight of the larger wheels, plus the smaller wheels and wheel weights, have increased traction also.

It sounds to me like you are doing exactly the right thing when mowing on slopes! Ideally, one would want a track width just shy of the working width of the mower - or whatever implement one is using on a steep slope. This is not always possible, but it will give you maximum stability.

I have had the privilege to spend 2 weeks of summer vacation in the northernmost part of Italy called South Tyrol, almost every summer for more than 15 years. On top of the wonderful views and the food, it is a perfect spot to see 2-wheel tractors at work on the steep slopes of the Alps.

Here I saw a hayrake/tedder with a quite impressive track width, perfect for working on steep slopes, and hopefully proving my point:




Best regards

Jens

 

[anomad]

Hi anomad

The flail mower is definitely a very impressive implement, and even after 5 years and around 110 working hours with my Berta, I’m still impressed by its performance. People who watch it hard at work for the first time, are always very impressed by the performance of such a relatively small machine. A flail mower is a very power-hungry implement though, and on tough jobs like mowing eagle fern, I have to reduce the working width. My Berta has a working width of 85 cm (34’’), but I usually reduce it to about half of that, and still I need all the 11.7 HP that the Honda GX390 engine will produce at full open throttle! The benefit of this is that everything is passed twice, leaving a very clean job, as you can see.

As I was looking for a 2-wheel tractor in 2011, I sadly didn’t know this wonderful forum and all the information available here, and I didn’t have anyone around me with experience in 2-wheel tractors either

My local BCS dealer made me a very good offer on a BCS 740, and after 14 years and more than 470 working hours, I’m still impressed with its performance

I only use my tractor in the front-PTO mode, primarily for mowing, and I soon realized that the standard 5x10x20’’ wheels were too small, and was sitting too close to the tractor. I got a pair of 6.5x12x23’’ wheels, and they are really making a lot of difference when mowing! I simply use the smaller wheels as axle extensions, to get a wider track width. This has increased the stability of the tractor a lot, especially when mowing on slopes. The increased weight of the larger wheels, plus the smaller wheels and wheel weights, have increased traction also.

It sounds to me like you are doing exactly the right thing when mowing on slopes! Ideally, one would want a track width just shy of the working width of the mower - or whatever implement one is using on a steep slope. This is not always possible, but it will give you maximum stability.

I have had the privilege to spend 2 weeks of summer vacation in the northernmost part of Italy called South Tyrol, almost every summer for more than 15 years. On top of the wonderful views and the food, it is a perfect spot to see 2-wheel tractors at work on the steep slopes of the Alps.

Here I saw a hayrake/tedder with a quite impressive track width, perfect for working on steep slopes, and hopefully proving my point:

View attachment 3881529


Best regards

Jens

My sister just got back from a trip to Schweiz. She was impressed how they make hay on every square inch of land they can harvest. I love seeing European solutions and wish they were more readily available over here.

 

[Jens767]

Hi jeepcoma

I fully agree on your description of the flail mower - it’s an awesome implement

I have read your post with interest a number of times, and I guess that it is my lack of knowledge of the English language, that makes me wonder if I understand you right

That eagle fern should dissolve like tissue paper, might be the case when talking about the finer parts of the leaves, but the rest of the plant - especially the stems/stalks - takes years to dissolve/compose in my area.

24. November 2020, I was called to mow a plot where the eagle fern had build a dense thicket along the outer perimeter, and was about to take complete control of the pasture, leaving less and less room for grass and other plants every year. Here, the eagle fern had been allowed to grow to about 6 feet tall for several years, but as the plants had withered by late November, Berta managed to cut them all down, leaving a tidy pasture for the coming year, and a very happy owner

On the pictures below, we have finished about ⅔ of the job:



When the eagle fern is this tall, the stems are up to ½ inch thick 2 inches above the ground, which is the mowing hight of my flail mower. This tall, they also get very fibrous, and they are impossible to tear apart by hand. One can imagine the amount of power it takes to not only cut these stems, but also to shred them into small pieces. On such tough jobs, I need to mow with ½ the normal working width to keep Berta and my Honda engine happy.

In my area we also have some problems with Japanese knotweed, which, as the name might suggest, ist an invasive species that tends to dominate native species where it grows.

A much bigger problem though, is Himalayan balsam, which has spread enormously over large parts of Europe the last few decades. Contrary to the Japanese knotweed, the Himalayan balsam is easy to control, as they are easily uprooted and they only spread by seeds. We usually begin when the first plants begin to bloom, and then repeats the process once or twice, depending on how many plants we missed, and how many new ones has appeared. The plants are easier to find when they are flowering, but it is important to remove them before they produce their seeds.

As these invasive plants often grow near streams and on wetlands, one can usually only control them by hand. I have had 1 single plot, where there was a thicket of Japanese knotweed that I could reach with my flail mower. Knotweed also produces seeds, but it spreads primarily through its large roots (rhizomes). Uprooting the plants, or digging up the roots themselves, is hardly practical and very labor-intensive. We have found, that mowing the plants often during the summer will weaken the plants a lot, as they have to start all over again every time. When the plants grow out of reach of the flail mower, a brushcutter is a very useful tool.


Best regards

Jens