Looking For A Gas Compact Tractor with loader and Mid Mount Mower

[Poopdeck Pappy]

My Dad and Grandad both had propane tanks on their pickups, mounted crossways in the bed right behind the cab. They had air chucks on them too, I saw my grandad many times air up a tire with propane whilst smoking a cigarette.

Yep, same here. We aired up our truck, trailer and tractor tires in the field off the propane tank in the pickups. I even had a 1974 Chevrolet Monte Carlo with a propane tank in the trunk! The cost to convert a truck or car to run dual fuel (propane/gas) was probably $200 back then and propane was dirt cheap.

They had flame cultivators too. Propane tank mounted above the toolbar and once the cotton got big enough they would use them. The flame on each row wouldn't hurt the cotton stalk but would kill weeds on the bed where the sweeps couldn't reach.

Never seen one of those. That's interesting.

 

[dusty3030]

Best I could find to show it on the web be they used them in the Arkansas delta when I was a kid.
Cotton stem is woody and tough, we didn't have the water spray on ours. The burners were adjusted to flame the raised beds where the cultivator plows could not reach. Really neat and worked well.

FARM SHOW - Arkansas farmer builds flame weed cultivator

 

[Utopia Texas]

" Now if you, as my dad, and many farmers do, have free natural gas on your farm, it don't take much math to show what type of engine should power your tractor."

So your Dad and many Farmers have the know how and equipment to compress, liquefy and store natural gas from their own property? I have my doubts.....

 

[Poopdeck Pappy]

Best I could find to show it on the web be they used them in the Arkansas delta when I was a kid.
Cotton stem is woody and tough, we didn't have the water spray on ours. The burners were adjusted to flame the raised beds where the cultivator plows could not reach. Really neat and worked well.

FARM SHOW - Arkansas farmer builds flame weed cultivator

Very interesting.

We used a cultivator to get as many weeds as possible in between the cotton rows, and then my dad had two handy weeders that got the rest of the weeds: Me and my brother with garden hoes. I wish I had a dollar for every acres of cotton I chopped as a kid. I could retire.

 

[dusty3030]

Very interesting. We used a cultivator to get as many weeds as possible in between the cotton rows, and then my dad had two handy weeders that got the rest of the weeds: Me and my brother with garden hoes. I wish I had a dollar for every acres of cotton I chopped as a kid. I could retire.

I spent about an hour this week with a sharp hoe chopping careless weeds on the fence line. Reminded me how hard my folks worked and how soft my desk job has made me.

 

[wolc123]

So your Dad and many Farmers have the know how and equipment to compress, liquefy and store natural gas from their own property? I have my doubts.....

You'd be surprised how much know-how those "Farmers" have. In this case, they don't even need it, as CNG compressors are currently available for home use and are AC-electric powered at an energy cost about the same as a clothes-dryer. They use low-pressure Natural Gas right out of your well (or home gas line). Tanks for gas storage is already included as part of the $4k conversion cost on a 1/2 ton pickup truck. You just pump directly to the truck's (or tractor's) on-board tanks. As I type, the "big-boys" over at GE are working on a home-use CNG compressor that has an estimated retail price of $500.

So, for a $4,500 investment, you could kiss your diesel fuel good-by. Again, 5 years from now, it is hard to see where a diesel engine is going to be worth much over scrap value. I certainly would not consider buying another now, especially as power-robbing emission regulations (tier 4, etc.), and diesel fuel sulfur reduction are being forced upon us. There are not many fuels that burn cleaner than Natural Gas, and the proven reserves, in North America alone, are many hundreds of years.

Anyone with a well, could even take it a step further, making his own electric from the low pressure natural gas with a natural-gas generator (again, relatively inexpensive). All the energy needed by the farm could be made on the farm, just like it was when we used horses to pull our plows.

The only thing we are lacking now is a source for new CNG powered tractor's. Maybe I just have to "high-jack" one of them brand-new garbage trucks and swap motors with my brand-new John Deere. I think the people needing the additional know-how are the tractor manufacturers.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Would you care to make a friendly wager on the accuracy of your prediction?

Steve

I will take as much of that action as he is willing to offer. I wouldn't bet that CNG would be effective as a fuel even in 20 years. It would take that long just to get it to fuel cars and even longer for AG tractors. NO ONE is going to road their tractor 20 miles to get fuel and high pressure compressed gas is not the same as LPG so very little of it can be stored in a tank. Large AG tractors would have to tow at least a 1000 gallon liquid capacity tank behind their tractor to hold enough CNG to last all day.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Being able to pull a city bus into a facility to replenish its supply or CNG every 20-50 miles isn't going to cut it with Ag producers or even CUT home owners. They want to run all day without refueling, not 1-2 hours and where on a tractor can you put the equivalent of 10-20 High Pressure gas cylinder like a city bus would carry. If you figure even a small 2.0L displacement engine and that is a very small engine) that sucks in 2L of air/fuel mixture per 4 revolutions running at 2500 that is 625L per minute and at say 5% fuel (just guessing at that number), OK lets just say 1% is 6.25L per minute of CNG needed to fuel that engine. The largest portable compressed gas cylinder hold 240 cu. ft for run time of 38.4 minutes. You would need over 17 of those mounted on your tractor to be able to run for 10 hours and that is assuming no loss of content due to temperature and pressure restrictions that may cause a relief valve to open.

It just isn't possible until we get a better system to transport liquefied natural gas. Even the tanker ships loose about 10% of their product during overseas transport due to boil off of the CNG.
It is a very different gas from LPG that can be stored for months or years without loss.
As soon as an LNG container ship arrives in port the liquefied gas is vaporized back to gas for transport and use. No one uses LNG for anything other than ship transport from producing country to using country.

CNG and Hydrogen are both futuristic dream fuels that wont happen productively for many years if ever.

 

[Gary Fowler]

OK, just did a little research and one C.F. of natural gas has about 1000 BTU's of energy. An engine needs 10,000 BTU per HP per hour so a 100 HP Ag tractor would need about one million BTU per hour or about 100,000 Cubic feet of natural gas to run an hour under full load.
If my figures are right and the info from internet is correct then one would need a very large high pressure gas container to be able to run even for an hour. I wouldn't want to be near any tank with more than 3000 PSI nor would it be practical to put a tank in a mobile piece of equipment with more than that pressure. The compressor would have to be enormous to handle the volume needed and at that pressure just to fuel a large or even a small tractor to run for a few minutes.

I don't think I will be investing in any CNG equipment to replace my diesel tank.

 

[wolc123]

One thing is for sure. Most of us will see how this all turns out in the next several years. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to drain middle-east dry of oil before the big CNG changeover takes place, assuming our environment can stand that additional abuse. Calculations like the above, to show how CNG is "impossible" will at least stem the tide a bit for the simple-minded. You just cant stop the cream from rising to the top however.