bx24 VS b26

[ultrarunner]

With that many trees... I think you will find the B26 lacking also...

I think of the B26 as the ultimate tractor for a Residential/City Landscape Contractor... small enough to get in most places, light enough to trailer with a regular truck and powerful enough to run most accessories.

One of the local Dealers has set up a few B26's with hydraulic post hole diggers mounted on the backhoe boom attached to hydraulic lines normally used for the thumb.

I've got a BX23 and it has done a lot of work... I don't know probably moved a 100 yards of gravel and punched in some trails through the woods... it has done everything asked of it... even digging out a 36" pine stump... took about 3 hours for one stump and had to reposition several times...

Ground Clearance will probably be an issue... most of us have added the belly skid plate to our BX series...

Right now I see some good prices on low hour units... saw a L39 with 250 home owner hours for 27-28k... just a thought.

 

[Tom_H]

In that case, a B series is likely better, especially if you are going to be handling logs. You might even go L series.

I checked and the B26 will not take an MMM. It is a construction tractor, not a landscape maintenance tractor. You did mention brush hogging, will you have any lawn? My guess would be no, as I am familiar with the soil, climate, ecosystems in the area and elevation you describe.

There are special attachments you might want to consider, such as log grapples that will tow logs in linear allignment behind the tractor.

The logs in my log house came from 8500+' el. in MT, but were live cut harvest. Beetle killed trees can still be harvested and used as logs or lumber when correctly treated.

 

[JoelD]

Stumping is something I've got a lot of experience with.

Pines are by far the easiest to come out. Unless that is you are in rocky soil, in which case nothing comes out easy.

There is no machine on the planet (in my humble opinion) that is better at stumping than and excavator.

I dug on a stump with my Kioti LK (30 HP machine, 7.5 foot hoe) for 3-4 hours and still could not get it to wiggle. Cat 311, and 2 minutes I popped it out. Went after another of equal size and from scratch had it out in 10 minutes with the cat. I rented the cat for 8 hours and ran out of stumps to dig up, mine were elm in the rockies soil, other than ledge, possible.

YouTube - Picking up Stump with Excavator

My machine can pop pines out all day, as long as I don't run into big rock, 30 inches on the other hand is a big stump no matter what the brand tree.

I've stated in numerous posts that stumping is a an animal all its own and you need the right equipment, otherwise it can be a never ending frustrating process.

I paid $500 all in for the excavator for a day (actually used 8 hours over a weekend as they dropped it for the weekend) and will do it no other way going forward.

Good luck,
Joel

PS, Former Kubota owner, super nice machines.

 

[cabinboy]

Iam going to use the brush hog for cutting some sage brush I have in front ,I will be having to move some of these logs around also .I will also have @ a mile of dirt road to try and maintain with a few culverts to be put in . And after that is done I would like to have @ 1 acker of yard to level and maintain. Then I can move onto some other projects in my spare time.

 

[Tom_H]

You might want to think about your attachments prior to making a final decision on the tractor.

For moving your logs, there are a number of grapples available to either complement your FEL bucket, or to put on in its place. These all put a log perpendicular to the tractor. If you are moving the logs out of an area that still has standing trees, your logs will have to be cut to short enough lengths not to impede travel. There are, however, 3ph grapples that will tow logs linearly behind the tractor. Here is an example:

Tree Grapple

I don't know how tough the sage will be nor how fine you want your acre of lawn to be. There is one hybrid between a brush hog and a 3pt finish mower, the Woods RM990. It has three stump jumping spindle pans with two free pivoting blades each. The deck has more of a RFM (rear finish mower) chassis, and the blades have an edge so that they can cut as well as break:

Woods Equipment Company - RM990 series 90?

The more you tell us about this property, the bigger the size of tractor I think you need. I'd encourage you to think about how big the attachments need to be and make sure you don't get a tractor that isn't up to the job of running them.