Tractor/Cart/Mower Advice

[SteveHGraham]

It might be helpful for gardening. I would like to have some tomatoes and so on, but not more than maybe a quarter of an acre. I can see how a tractor could be overkill.

[warmstrong1955]

I have a friend in Texas, who has a John Deere abot 430 size, for mowing his lawn. That's all it does.
He recently bought a compact New Holland tractor, 4WD, with a loader and a backhoe w/quick attach. He bought a box blade, and built a grizzly bucket, for his driveway.

4WD will make a big difference when filling a bucket.

You just have to look at your planned utilization.....

[SteveHGraham]

I wonder what will attach to a Kubota L3710.

[warmstrong1955]

Let your fingers do the walking.......


http://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractor ... ments.html

[warmstrong1955]

There's a lot of aftermarket non-OEM stuff out there too.

[SteveHGraham]

Whoa, Nelly! It will lift 1500 pounds? That would certainly help with arranging the shop.

[warmstrong1955]

Whoa, Nelly! It will lift 1500 pounds? That would certainly help with arranging the shop.

You better check that spec....it may require it to have the backhoe attachment on, or a counterweight.
Sometimes there's a 'weasel note' with some of those specs.

Kubota site would have that....or better yet, a call to a Kubota dealer.

[SteveHGraham]

Too time-consuming. I'll just try to pick up something expensive and see if anything breaks.

I don't have anything near the 1500-pound mark. I have stuff much lighter and much heavier, so I do not believe I'm in trouble here. My heaviest item under 1500 would be a 400-pound band saw. I do have a table saw that weighs more than 400, but that's fully assembled, with the base and table, and I would not try to pick it up unless it were on a pallet with the table removed.

[BadDog]

I have a Kubota B2150 I use to futz around my 1.3 acre "horse property". No grass to mow, but I've used a single tine cultivator bar with a sub-soiler tooth on a "implement bar" (multi purpose 3 point tool mount) to cut trenches for irrigation, and the big Ford 905 auger for making water/compost wells around my fruit tree drip lines, Gannon box-blade for (re)grading land (and filling in dog holes), that sort of thing. And the bucket (with forks) is nice for toting my 3 span (4 uprights) 12' scaffold setup around the property when I was rehabbing/painting the exterior of the buildings, or hauling cut up wood from dead trees, anything less then ~500 lbs. But while it does support a belly mower (has mid PTO), and they make various 3 pt finish mowers, I wouldn't want to mow anything other than a wide open acre lawn with it. And that's a lot smaller tractor than the L3710. That's a "real" tractor as opposed to my largish (S)CUT (sub-compact utility tractor). If you have trees and walks and flower beds you'll certainly want something smaller. For most larger yards my first choice would not be a belly mower, JD or otherwise, though they are viable (and relatively cheap options). A zero turn would be the better option. Then use the big tractor to do tractor things, including mowing the fields.

[warmstrong1955]

True about mower deck & tractors. The wider they are, the less even they mow, and the more they scalp. No matter in a field, but can make a mess in a real yard.

That's why those big mowers for golf courses are not one big deck, but a bunch of them all on their own wheels.

I have a 3 blade 46". Wish it was a 2 blade 42". They cut a lot better, at least the ones I have used.

[SteveHGraham]

I am not too worried about scalping the yard, since the John Deere has been mowing it for quite some time. I do wonder about the convenience, compared to a ZTR, and whether being able to use attachments with the John Deere makes it worth it.

[warmstrong1955]

I don't think there are a lot of attachments for zero turns, other than those for grass cutting, and real lawn work.
Other problem is if you do mow fields, you need the bigger tires.
Only way I could mow my 2 acres out front with a ZT, would be to tow it behind a tractor. Weeds, cheatgrass, sagebrush, and tumbleweeds....in sand. My MTD used to get stuck out there all the time till I smoothed out much of it, and it has rear tires bigger than most. I stll get stuck now & then...easy enough to push out by hand, but smaller tires....wouldn't get much done.