Mowing with 100hp and 3-pt Finish Mower

[Hoss710]

A friend of mine cuts 200 acres of grass. he bought a 15ft bat wing for his 100 hp tractor. he ended up trading in tractor for 125 hp. the 15 ft was just to much for the 100hp.

 

[chim]

Went through several setups and added some grass since we built here in '89. Latest and best so far is a Caroni 7-1/2' deck I restored behind the L4240 with R4's. I can do the current 3-1/2 acres in an hour if I hustle and bounce around, but prefer taking an additional 15 minutes for a smoother ride. It marks less than the previous tractors and turns tighter than the smaller ones did. The rear discharge makes it easy to mow in different directions. (Color is really orange, not sure why the one picture looks so red)

 

[Deanes]

I'm hoping to get some feedback from more experienced people (which is probably all of you).

I have an old Kubota ZG327 (yes, gas) zero turn that has been serving me well for about 10 years (bought it used, and it was old then).

It works, and does okay, but I think it's underpowered for me needs and I'm sure I don't have it tweaked well. I often need to go over an area a few times.

I'm in Sullivan County, NY and have 5 different locations to mow, totaling about 16-18 acres. Not golf course or high end lawns but trying to make everything as nice as possible. Some of the land has hills, and some can be quite bumpy (and my back does not appreciate that). Takes 2 full days (maybe 2.5) to get everything mowed.

I also have a 100hp M-series Kubota with Ag tires.

I was thinking about getting a new zero turn, but availability is scarce and price is high.

Then I though maybe I should get a PTO driven finish mower. EA has an 84" that looks nice. I have a suspicion that anything wider (96" for example) would not work so well because the ground is so often not flat.

My thinking is I could do that the straight runs with the Kubota-finish combination and the areas that require more maneuverability with the zero turn.

Does this make sense? Would is save my back? Would it do a good job?

Thanks very much.

I sympathize with your dilemma, and believe me I understand the cost problem, but you currently do not have enough mower for this amount of acreage. I recommend the finish mower for the open spaces, just like you suggested, but now you have the problem of too much tractor. Like others have said, maybe try a 7' rotary mower with good blades. If that doesn't work, beg, borrow, lease or buy a smaller tractor and finish mower. OR, bite the bullet and trade in the old zero turn for something like a commercial Bad Boy mower. They have an amazing suspension and are built like a tank. Be patient, I was able to buy a 60" one from an estate in mid january. It has a Cat diesel, seems indestructible, and rides amazingly smooth.

 

[FrancisC]

I mow 3 of our fields from March to October, every week in Spring and every couple of weeks after july. About 35 acres of spent pasture land that needs to be rehab'ed for a few years (previous owner's mess, not mine...). I just use the 3m (10ft) flail mower on mulch setting, 3.5-4 mph. 120hp tractor. Works great, very clean cut when you keep the hammers nice and sharp, cheap to purchase and operate, makes a nice mulch that you can't see after a week, keeps the weeds down, replenishes soil organic material and goes about 3 times as fast as a JD ZT mower area-wise we tried last year for better results. I guess it all depends on your own expectations of finished product. Turf tyres? no damage to the surface being worked, no traction for even small slopes when it's got a hint of humidity. Ag tyres? Plenty of traction, not good for a lawn type of finish and leaves ruts. Flotation tyres for a 100hp tractor? That'll cost you an arm and both legs, better invest in a ZT mower...

 

[Hay Dude]

It doesn’t really matter how much suspension a zero turn has. Although it makes the operators life easier, one has to remember it’s still beating the machine itself to death.

 

[Sid Post]

Not enough juice for the squeeze.
I’d get some more mowing contracts, then go for a bigger mower.
The other thing is with a 100HP tractor on lawn-style fields, AG tires would be leaving marks unless it was ideal (dry) conditions.
One other thing of note: You’d be surprised at how nice of a cut a traditional 15’ batwing bush hog can do on lawn grass with sharp blades. Those finish mowers are fine, but a bush hog is much tougher and you could cut properties with rougher grass.

View attachment 801696

Exactly!

In my case, I have a 6' wide 3-pt LandPride finish mower on a Kubota B2601. It follows the contours of the ground so generally, I get zero scalping.

OP: For a larger tractor like yours, a batwing mower with sharp blades will work well and save you a lot of time mowing.

 

[Hay Dude]

I’m going to add a 20 footer if I can find a clean used one. Will use that on my larger fields and push the 15 footer to the rough stuff.

 

[m7040]

I moved over an air suspension seat from the tractor to the ZT> Has a lot of stroke and rides smoothly. I don't push it super fast but at average speed it is much more comfortable. The old spring suspension seat was useless

 

[4570Man]

I wouldn’t even consider a tractor finish mower over a larger zero turn unless you took it to the extreme with a batwing finish mower. A 100 hp tractor is too large and heavy to be practical and a 72” ZT will beat the heck out of that setup pulling a 84” finish mower. Even if you had a 96” mower you’d probably still loose just because the tractor is so cumbersome. I can easily haul my 72” zero turn behind a 1/2 ton pickup. If I had a second zero turn I could haul 2 or 3 together. I’d have to use my semi to haul a 100 hp tractor. The tractor will burn a lot more fuel then my ZT will and the semi burns a lot more fuel than the pickup will and loading and securing the tractor takes a lot longer. The whole setup just isn’t practical.

 

[Rahn]

98 horse Oliver 1855 with a bat-wing mower. Not mine but a sod farm near us. I think their moto is: “Leave no trace (tracks).” Does a beautiful job mowing.