RSKY
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2003
- Messages
- 2,453
- Tractor
- Kioti CK20S
I'm going to go against what others have said but bear with me.
For the most part a heavy duty rotary mower is made to cut up trees more than 2" in diameter. The light duty ones are usually rated for 1". If all you are doing is mowing grass in a field then save your money and get the light duty. As long as it has a stump jumper it will handle anything you can throw at it for years. Just make sure the gearbox is rated for more hp than your tractor has.
I run a 5' light duty mower with my CK20 which only has 16.2 PTO hp. The limiting factor is speed over the ground. The tractor is a hydro drive and in low range, where I keep it 99% of the time, it is slow. So even with the pedal all the way down the tractor is not moving all that fast and will cut grass and weeds with no problem. In thicker stuff I just slow down. If I can get the little tractor to push over a sapling I can cut it up with the mower by inching forward as slow as possible. Heavier stuff, such as a cross-tie hidden in leaves at the edge of a woods, just means I stop and reverse as soon as the blades hit it. So far I haven't broke a shear bolt and I don't know if the little tractor even has enough power to break one.
For the heavier stuff we use a 52-hp tractor with an 40 year old heavy duty Ford 6' mower. I have cleard several acres of bottom land that had trees about 2" diameter with it. I have also welded, bolted, and chained it back together several times. The larger tractor will move twice as fast as the little one even pulling the larger mower. I have put the 6' mower on my Kioti and once I get the blades to spinning I can slowly mow with it but it is so slow you can't get much done.
If you are only mowing 3-4 acres of grass then a heavy duty mower would be money wasted. If the ground is covered in 1"-2" diameter saplings then you might need the heavy duty.
For the most part a heavy duty rotary mower is made to cut up trees more than 2" in diameter. The light duty ones are usually rated for 1". If all you are doing is mowing grass in a field then save your money and get the light duty. As long as it has a stump jumper it will handle anything you can throw at it for years. Just make sure the gearbox is rated for more hp than your tractor has.
I run a 5' light duty mower with my CK20 which only has 16.2 PTO hp. The limiting factor is speed over the ground. The tractor is a hydro drive and in low range, where I keep it 99% of the time, it is slow. So even with the pedal all the way down the tractor is not moving all that fast and will cut grass and weeds with no problem. In thicker stuff I just slow down. If I can get the little tractor to push over a sapling I can cut it up with the mower by inching forward as slow as possible. Heavier stuff, such as a cross-tie hidden in leaves at the edge of a woods, just means I stop and reverse as soon as the blades hit it. So far I haven't broke a shear bolt and I don't know if the little tractor even has enough power to break one.
For the heavier stuff we use a 52-hp tractor with an 40 year old heavy duty Ford 6' mower. I have cleard several acres of bottom land that had trees about 2" diameter with it. I have also welded, bolted, and chained it back together several times. The larger tractor will move twice as fast as the little one even pulling the larger mower. I have put the 6' mower on my Kioti and once I get the blades to spinning I can slowly mow with it but it is so slow you can't get much done.
If you are only mowing 3-4 acres of grass then a heavy duty mower would be money wasted. If the ground is covered in 1"-2" diameter saplings then you might need the heavy duty.
!!!