Land Pride mower question

[daugen]

I tried mowing the fields with the little five foot mower off the smaller older tractor and it just looked awful.
Need a bigger cut to cover the tires, so I went up two feet to an 84. A Land Pride RCF2084 . At first I thought they brought the wrong mower because it didn't look big enough, but upon closer inspection, it was the right one. With one big difference.

The picture I had studied had twin tail wheels, like below. My new mower has one tailwheel, and clearly has the holes all drilled for the optional double rear wheels. On the other mower, I have found that the single wheel could cut into the ground on sharp turns, if the ground was at all soft. So I assumed the much heavier mower would come with the two wheels. No, and I'm waiting for the pricey quote on this option.
This is a heavy mower, well at least for me anyway... http://www.landpride.com/ari/attach/lp/public/specs/326-461s.pdf

For those of you who run large single mowers/cutters, can you recommend when a dual tailwheel is worth the money?
I cut at 6-7 inches btw, field grass only, no brush.
thanks

 

[TripleR]

I do fine with one tail wheel on my RCR2672, but would certainly want dual wheels on a 7'; actually my preference would be a dual spindle 8', but that's another story.

 

[murphy1244]

Why not use a finish mower?

 

[daugen]

both good points. A single seven footer is a lot less expensive than a dual eight or more, though if I was not mowing fairly high, that mower I'm sure could scalp the land pretty good. I took it over one "mogul" as a test, and didn't hit dirt, but I have a lot more testing to do.
Crawled underneath, seriously heavy duty, and the side skids look about half an inch lower than the mower blade. Good thing, as I saw one
area where the side skids bottomed out on soft ground and left tracks, but nothing serious.

As far as a finish mower, I'm never sure what I might encounter in a new field, so I decided to stick with the bush hog style, and simply sharpen the blades. That has worked out very well so far on the smaller mower, and my first pass with the larger one looked equally good. The dealer had taken the new blades off and touched them up, as I requested.
I'm hoping to move in a few years to a new place with a lot more acreage and I'm thinking ahead too. Wanted this model to be able to work on a 90-100 hp tractor also, though I'm sure I'd get into a batwing at that point if need be.

I had not known that a rough cut mower with sharp blades can cut field grass nicely, until I tried it out myself. I've seen so many nasty looking mow jobs, most due to mowing too low and clumping everything, or mowing while wet. But when I was done last year, it looked like a golf course ,and the property owners were delighted. Sharpened the blades once during the summer, since the toughest test has always been the
late summer mowing. Thickest in the Spring, but toughest in the late summer due to the grass sending up those tiny bamboo like shoots that want to remain as whispies.