Buying Advice Tractor for converting cleared forest land to row crops

[airbiscuit]

It would help if you would post pictures of the cleared property. jeff9366 gave you sound advice. If you wanted to spend less money, or kind of ease into it, you could buy an older farm tractor for $3,000 - $4,500, a springtooth and disc, and just go round and round and round. It would chew things up and smooth things out.

After that, you will have a better idea of what you want and need. You will probably be able to sell the tractor and implements for about what you paid for them, and will have saved some abuse from your newer shinier tractor. Alternatively, you could hire a nearby farmer to do it, but what fun is that?

 

[jeff9366]

Field Cultivator is available in multiple widths: Chisel Plows

 

[billwa]

Continuing to gather information.

I think I have decided to bring in a guy with a dozer to level things out in July. This has been a record wet year and we normally get more than 100 inches of rain, so things need to dry out first. That means I won't be able to do much with the new space this year, but that's probably not such a bad thing, since it gives me more time to work out a plan.

Checked into dealers. The only one that is close is a Kioti dealer. He will pick up and drop off for service, which is a good deal since I don't own a trailer. I could get one of course, but it simplifies my life not to have to deal with it. I have Kubota and Mahindra about 90 miles and John Deere a little farther. None of them will come out, so I'd be stuck trailering the tractor a long way back and forth every time I need something. That seems like a pretty strong argument for Kioti, assuming its a decent brand.

If I have had a dozer go through with a root rake and level things, that means I might not need such a heavy tractor. He says that there will still be a lot of junk wood in the ground, probably nothing rooted, but just stuff that has been driven under by all the heavy equipment. He figured that bigger wood is going to get floated up every winter as the water table comes close to the surface. So the job is going to be closer to traditional soil prep, just with a lot of clumps and debris probably coming up for several years.

Also looking at used options, but that is a little tricky. This isn't much of a farming area, so there aren't a lot of tractors to be found unless I go an hour or more inland. I don't have great mechanical skills, so it is hard to evaluate the condition of an older machine and, while I can certainly handle routine maintenance, once the problems get more complicated, I get out of my depth pretty fast.

 

[jeff9366]

Korean tractors are the fastest growing compact tractor segment. Kioti and LS are the leading Korean tractor brands. High value tractors.

Send some of your rain to Florida. We are parched.

 

[Tigershark]

We are building a new pond at our farm and a highlift and a dozer cleared 2.5 acres of solid trees in about 7 hrs. Prob 30 large dead ash trees and a hundred medium sized ones. Have one heck of a burn pile. Wait for the dozer or a good size high lift they can push some trees over quick.

 

[jeff9366]

What is a High Lift? I am clueless.

 

[boggen]

there is a good amount of threads here on TBN of cleanup after a clearing.
google
keywords of what you want site:tractorbynet.com

the site:tractorbynet.com only brings back results just from this site.
suggestion click up on "images" and will more likely take you to different threads.

Tractor Attachments And Skid Steer Attachments For Any Tractor Or Skid Steer = a good spot for a newbie to find videos of different equipment and in how to set it up and use it.

youtube dig up some videos and watch some.

posting pictures of current end results of what you are dealing with would help other give better advice. so they can see the ruts / holes in ground, roots sticking out, etc...

===========
3pt stuff
middle buster / potatoe plow, moldboard plow, trip plow, chisel, disc, harrow / drag harrow, field cultivator, various rakes.

3pt stuff grading / leveling
box blade, rear blade, grader

for FEL (front end loader)
root bucket, grapple for FEL, tooth bar, ratchet rake, stump bucket, tree spade for FEL

------
there is a lot of stuff to pick and choose from. some work better than others pending on situation. some will get stuck some will not under roots. some will go further into ground than others. some are better suited after you done primary tillage, and getting a finishing top off of the soil/dirt ready for planting. while others better at primary tillage and perhaps getting more roots out.

3pt hitch tiller for example might be a bad thing, and having roots wrap around the tines, and/or bending the tines. or the tiller might skip across the roots and not actually dig down into the dirt.

a middle buster / potatoe plow, single shank that drops further down, generally has a "shear bolt" on it. so if you do snag a nasty larger root. the shear bolt with cut/break apart allowing the middle buster to swing on up and out vs having your tractor coming to a complete stop and/or possibly damaging something (shear bolt = saftey thing), middle buster going to be slow only single shank down, and it may take a couple passes over same spot to reach a given depth.

a generic bottom plow / moldboard plow. may run up under a root and get caught. a trip plow. the plows twist backwards and out hopefully being able to keep on going.

a field cultivator, the tines/shanks kinda like a trip plow. and if they hit something more likely they can bend backwards and up and out of the way and keep going. vs damaging something.

i never had luck with a disc cutting through roots. and slide over the tops of the roots instead.

box blade with scraficer teeth. you can sink them down a couple inches. maybe buying longer shanks/scraficer teeth. but is more made in grabbing high spots and bring dirt in to fill low spots.

there is no wrong or right way, but hopefully some better ways with less hassle.

 

[cat fever]

As stated already, a dozer with a root rake to remove any larger pieces of roots and debris will save you time. Then you could use something like this springtooth harrow. I think it's my most used piece of equipment.

I would not hesitate to give Kioti a good look. I have had no problems with mine, does everything I need. Mostly farming/haying type work.

 

[billwa]

Primary land clearing is done and it finally stopped raining long enough to get some pics today. These will give you some idea of what I am working with. I'm pretty well sold on having a dozer come in before doing anything else. It seems like it would be really rough going trying to drive a small tractor around out there.



As for tractors, the local Kioti dealer suggested either a NX4510 or NX6010. I need to learn more about the transmission options, but it looks like there are plenty of threads here on that subject. I can't get a dozer out until July, so that gives me lots of time to keep learning.

 

[Kentuckyfarmer]

What is a High Lift? I am clueless.

Track loader or looks like a dozer with a front end loader.