looking for some old iron, 7710/7810 for row cropping

[TerrapinFarms]

whats up fellas,
new to the site here. my dad is giving up the lease on one of his plots and he wants to switch over from commodity corn to organic vegetable production. he leases out most of his land so we don't have much in terms of large equipment . were starting with a 96 acre plot. being that we need so much equipment were looking at older rigs. i found a real nice 7710 up for grabs not too far away. being that this is a 155hp tractor how big of a disk harrow could i pull with this?. don't need to make 30 foot passes or anything. but this is hard fallow ground so i need the power to dig deep. what do y'all suggest? this is a little out of my real, I'm a greenhouse hydroponics guy, making the transition into the fields . any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[motownbrowne]

What kind of vegetables are you gonna grow on 96 acres? I'm sure you've thought about this, but I'd really recommend visiting some other growers in the area who are doing vegetables on your scale and seeing what they are using. Seriously, though, 96 acres, unless you're doing something real simple like sweet corn, pumpkins, etc is a huge amount of land. I've heard of people growing green beans on contract, where the buyer (green giant or the like) comes in with the harvester once they are mature. Maybe something like that could be an option. The equipment to harvest veggies is really specialized and expensive.

 

[boggen]

www.tractorhouse.com lists a wide arrangement of equipment

but like motownbrowne noted. you get into anything that are vegetables or fruits or nuts, and it all becomes specialized expensive equipment.

you can grow various crops and possibly use same combine, just different headers, maybe swapping out the plates in the combine for physical size of crop. but again, ya get into some nit picking there of this or that. examples might be various wheat's for different types of breads.

granted vegetable machines some of that stuff can be re-purposed for other types of vegetables. (within reason). such as root based crops, carrots, green onions, were you run machine along the ground, and pull the crop up by the stalk/greens above ground.

a big issue, is how crops are processed, and if ya handle the stuff to roughly the crop gets damaged.

tillage / harvesting.... planting also has its own hick-ups pending on what crops you go with.

 

[boggen]

another source for larger equipment, is large consignment auctions, around me, there is 2 to 3 places, that hold auctions 2 to 3 times a year. were everyone brings in the big machineery (tractors, implements, etc...) and they run 2 to 4 rings. (2 to 4 auction vehicles) at the same time.

find the bigger website that all the local auctioneers use for your area. and keep an eye on various auctions for ag equipment. some stuff comes up here and there. maybe 1 once or twice a month around me for larger stuff. i would imagine differs from area to area, and the time of year.

 

[D7E]

Not a deere man but I would prefer something like a 4450/4650 . I think deeres peaked with the 10 series generally anything since has been a lot more trouble