we have a New Holland TN75 and just blew out our old, rusted-out rotary mower (not sure make/model) after hitting a stump. Looking @ buying a new mower and I wanted to look into flail mowers.
We are in the West Virginia panhandle, moderate slopes, no rocks but some ground is uneven. The main use would be to cut brush & a hay field FULL of mullein (a woody weed, can get up to 2" in diameter, grows in large patches). If its tough enough, we might use the mower to reclaim an old hayfield choked out with blackberry, multiflora rose, small cedars, etc.
Does anyone have experience using a flail mower to cut large areas of tough, woody weeds like mullein? I think it actually choked up our haybine and broke the blades. I dont want to drop a few thousand dollars on something that isnt appropriate for our needs. Thanks for any insight you can offer!
Alec
here is a pic of mullein if you arent familiar with it. If you need some, we got plenty!
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Thats not as bad as sugar cane stalks for sure;
depending on your budget you could pick up a very large stalk chopper/flail shredder at a dispersal auction that is wide and very efficient at cutting stalks in ridge tillage and flat land corn growing-meaning tough as nails machinery, or purchase a very small stalk chopper new as they have grass knives and mean business when they are working leaving next to nothing to see.
Or buy a Caroni FRTM1900FSC with 112 grass knives and have no issues either. the cutting width in millimeters is 1,9OO in width/ the cutting width in inches is 75 inches in width.
You are not that far from the agris supply store chain and you could save on freight if you bought it in store.
The smallest flail mower will make any pasture into carpet if you drive slow enough and we mow a lot of our 12 acres with a 48 flail mower with no issues.
using 54 grass blades.
The grass knives will fold back if they encounter and object and simply rotate backk into place to continue working many grass knives available have 2 cutting edges soi all you have to do it flip it to the other edge.
The other thing is that the full width of the mower is slicing grass at all times at 540 tractor rpm with the grass knives overlapping each other slicing everything into tiny bits.
Each grass knife has a cutting edge and with 112 knives in the FTM 1900 or other flail mower with grass knives have more total cutting edge than a rotary cutter has with the same representative width in cut.
you would obtain the same level of finish with a towed flail chopper bought at auction if you went that route as well.
flail mowers use less fule and are much much quieter in operation than rotary cutters and the flail mower will slice the brush and carry it over the rotor and throw it back on the ground.
If you drive at slow pace you can cut all the brush down to the ground if you want the first time or mow it in two stages etc.
mowing in spiral pattern allows you avoid stopping and turning around to mow and saves fuel, brakes, and time.
Citing my example I tow our motorised flail mower with a garden tractor and use 2 gallons of fuel to mow 4 acres-one in the tractor and one in the mower as the tractor is not under load and the flail mower is running flat out at maximum rotor speed to slice the grass to tiny bits.
As long as you run the tractor PTO at 540-1000 rpm depending on the gear box designed speed and do not lug the tractor down driving forward it will mow and mow and mow with no issues.
Any stalks left will be shredded again in the second pass if a second lower pass is desired.
If you contact iron horse on the forum here he will provide you with a world of excellent advice regarding flail mowers and you will find his rotary cutter story very disturbing as far as throwing a 5 inch bolt quite a distance and penetrating into a residence and fortunately no one was injured.
leonz
