Just bought 70 acres - now what?

[Redfox]

Is there any "rule of thumb" for estimating the acre / hour cut rate by using a cutter of a given width. For example, what is a reasonable cut rate for a 8 ft mower, 10 ft mower, a 15 ft mower, etc?

 

[rockyridgefarm]

<font color="brown">
Why avoid the single spindle 7' cutter? </font>

Here is my opinion, your mileage may vary!!

The 7' single cutter takes a ton of power to spin it, and it hangs out real far behind the tractor. And its expensive. Once you are paying this much going bigger makes more sense.

An 8' cutter is two 4' side by side. Each takes a lot less anergy to turn than a 7' single and has a much shorter overhang.

Bush Hog makes a 7' dual which is offset to one side (SQ84T). It is a light duty cutter. It has some fans and some that don't like it at all. I decided that if I found one cheap, I'd love it, but at the full price, I was afraid to try it. But it is a cool idea. No one stocks it near me, and if I ordered it, I had to take it.

My 6' medium duty cutter is doing a great job, and with additional support (horses) is keeping up nicely....

 

[HammerFour]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Is there any "rule of thumb" for estimating the acre / hour cut rate by using a cutter of a given width. For example, what is a reasonable cut rate for a 8 ft mower, 10 ft mower, a 15 ft mower, etc? )</font>

I will take a stab at this, I am a fan of figuring out formulas...I can comfortably cut 1 - 2 acres an hour with our 5 foot rotary cutter. The variables are how rough the fields are, and how tall the grass is. In tall grass or weeds on bumpy ground, figure 1 acre an hour, smooth ground with moderate grass 2 acres an hour.

If you go up to the 15 foot rotary cutter size, I guess you can figure on 4 - 6 acres an hour? You will need a 50 hp or better tractor for that 10 footer and 75 hp or better for the 15 footer.

I now some folks who post on here have some experience with the 15 foot batwings, any comments?

 

[rockyridgefarm]

One gotcha is that bigger cutters can lose efficiency due to overlap and maneuvering obstacles...

 

[Panache]

I seem to remember seeing somewhere a 10' pull-behind could be run on only 30 hp. I was told the higher hp on the smaller one was for the 3ph lift capacity. Maybe one of the sales people here can set me straight.

 

[GaryS]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot , Pinot Noir, and Reisling)</font>

We're building a house on 7ac and want to plant some grapes too. Where do you buy 'em? Got any tips for a novice?

 

[Wannafish]

This formula, to figure acres/hr requires 2 known values.
They are Actual Cutting Width in feet (CW) and MPH you travel.

Acres/hr =MPH/(8.25/CW)

Thus, 5 MPH with a CW of 7.5' (8' allowing a little overlap) would be expressed as :
Acres/hr = 5/(8.25/7.5)

Acres/hr = 4.55

For those of you who haven't helped your kids with math in a while, remember to do the division in the (parenthesis) first /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[rockyridgefarm]

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[Redfox]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( /2 )</font>

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[rockyridgefarm]

Any time I do a job, there is a Performance Factor...

 

[Redfox]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( For good "hay" in the NW you actually grow alfalfa. It is like green wheat. It is a crop that takes years to get going well. It gets 5$ a bale or so.

The locals cut and bale the pasture growth around here and make "grass hay" since alfalfa and the grass that your pasture grows are entirely different. The grass hay is getting about half as much or 2.50$ per bale.

Grass hay is just a guy letting his lawn get too long. Alfalfa is an irrigated, fertilized, planted, crop for high nutrition feed. I suspect that was what the comment was about. )</font>

I spoke to the old owner. The hay field was seeded as a mixture of various grass, clover, and timothy. He says it fetches about $2.50 a small bale in the local market.

 

[Varmintmist]

Grass hay in PA at 2.50 a bale is some OK stuff, or he was one of the few that got his hay in the last 2 years and was able to get whatever he wanted out of it. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif If the market is about the same as out here then he is 25-50 cents higher than the norm.

Sounds like horse hay that he was small square bailing.

At a guess its timothy, orchard grass, fescue, and whatever clover blew in. Clover is not great in horse hay because of dust and if there is too much then the field needs to be turned and reseeded.

Pasture can and will have, clover, grasses, multiflora rose and general weeds. It can be cut and sold as "hay" but it is just bailed green stuff.

 

[Varmintmist]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( </font><font color="blueclass=small">( <font color="blue"> Buy in the spring and sell in the fall. </font> )</font>

Buy high and sell low ?? )</font>

Buy little and sell big. Let them do the weed eating, then sell them for meat.

Or feed them hay through the winter and sell in the spring.

Or sell most in the fall and grain one all winter and kill it in the spring.

Or any combination that makes beef for you. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Nasty135]

<font color="blue"> </font> </font><font color="blue" class="small">( What's the difference between a large CUT and a small UT? )</font>

One of the differences to consider besides the HP is that the UT's have a more heavy-duty trans...