First time tractor buyer..

[Tree Spud]

Great point. I have had luck with the local kubota dealer thus far, but that was on smaller things like zero turn, change saws, etc. Ill be stopping back up there on Friday to talk some more. As of now, I am leaning towards the mx5200 with the FEL, gear driven, and the shuttle shift. Any idea on change in price with the shuttle shift? We didnt discuss that at all yet, so not sure what to expect there. Also, are the remotes able to be added at any time?

I also want to have a price quote to compare on the 5800, although based online, that is only the HST. I'll also have him write up the m60. I just think that is more than I need or want to spend.

Rototillers look simple and easy, but most don't account for the OM that gets in and binds them and the soil type that stress's Hp.

When I bought my Kubota, they had a 5 yr no interest fiance deal, made upgrading to the 5800 a no brainier ... practically free.

You can always changes implements, you can't add Hp.

 

[yoderjac]

Rototillers look simple and easy, but most don't account for the OM that gets in and binds them and the soil type that stress's Hp.

When I bought my Kubota, they had a 5 yr no interest fiance deal, made upgrading to the 5800 a no brainier ... practically free.

You can always changes implements, you can't add Hp.

The better your soils, the more vegetative growth, the more potential clogging. I have not had too much problem now that I'm only using it to min-till. When I was doing traditional tillage, I went through times very quickly as well. The amount of clogging also depends on the specifics of the previous crop. I'd say that if clogging is an issue, you are probably a good candidate for T&M with cultipacking and don't need the tiller.

One more thing I've learn is that I get much less clogging if I take only the gentlest of turns and raise the tiller for all else. I use a technique similar to a 2-bottom plow where I make a straight pass, lift the tiller, turn around, and make a pass the other direction. It takes a bit longer, but I get much less clogging. I found that most of my clogging occurs between the last set of tines and the tiller frame when I make a turn. I have never had clogging severe enough that the tiller would not operate.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[SwampCat]

I own a 28 hp and a 65 hp. I could not get the 65 hp out of the yard for six months this year because of wet ground. The small tractor can do anything I need to do - but slower than the big tractor. The big tractor cant do everything the little tractor can do - especially in the wetland duck areas and bottomland food plots. I also use the small tractor for all trail work and repair, working around my planted trees, working around the yard and in the gardens, and most of the work at my other property - due to ease of trailer ability. Eight ft implements are a struggle to get a lot of my ground. I would have to have a major timber sale to widen my six miles of trails to allow wider equipment.

I know everyone’s situation is different. I plant about sixty acres a year and maintain 400 acres of land. If I was limited to one tractor - I would want something in the 50 hp range - the next smaller size frame than my 65 hp. I would give up a foot of implement width for more maneuverability and lighter weight.

 

[hillrunner]

I've never owned a compact tractor but wouldn't a 7' brush mower be pretty heavy to try and pick up with that short wheel base? I have a 7' JD brush mower and when I put it on my smaller tractor (about 6500 lbs) it is plenty of weight to pick up and the front end is plenty light. I would imagine a shorter, lighter, compact tractor would really struggle. If you have a loader on front, that may be enough ballast to keep the front end down?

 

[momatt]

Forums are no fun if everyone agrees so I'll give a different perspective. I started with a 1950 ford 8n 6 foot disc, 2 bottom plow 5 foot brush hog, 2 row planter and a cultivator and a cultipacker. Turns out, I would rather grow brassicas and rye than corn or sorghum and don't need a lot of that stuff. Now I only use the planter for sweet corn and should get rid of it as racoons eat more than I can grow. A family piece became available about 10 years ago, a 1962 Deere 4010 bought new by my wifes grandpa. We have the original receipt. Its about a 90 hp diesel tractor. I got a pretty heavy 10 foot hydraulic disc for it. With that disc, do not need a plow. I also got a 14-foot mower for it. Pretty much disc and mow once a year, have been using a Great Plains no till from the nrcs most years. I do not have a loader on it as I also have a case 455c track loader so I use it for those tasks. The big deere is bullet proof. Always starts, has more power than I can use and does 5 acres of plots in an eighth of the time of the old for 8n. You can buy a lot of 2wd ag tractor for the price of the little utility ones you are looking at. I think 4wd is sometimes overblown, R1 ag tires are hard to get stuck. If you have hills or want to pull logs I wouldn't recommend a 2wd ag tractor, but if you want to farm a few acres, which is basically what food plots are, use what farmers use, its not little utility tractors use the money you save to buy another 10 acres of land.

 

[hillrunner]

Forums are no fun if everyone agrees so I'll give a different perspective. I started with a 1950 ford 8n 6 foot disc, 2 bottom plow 5 foot brush hog, 2 row planter and a cultivator and a cultipacker. Turns out, I would rather grow brassicas and rye than corn or sorghum and don't need a lot of that stuff. Now I only use the planter for sweet corn and should get rid of it as racoons eat more than I can grow. A family piece became available about 10 years ago, a 1962 Deere 4010 bought new by my wifes grandpa. We have the original receipt. Its about a 90 hp diesel tractor. I got a pretty heavy 10 foot hydraulic disc for it. With that disc, do not need a plow. I also got a 14-foot mower for it. Pretty much disc and mow once a year, have been using a Great Plains no till from the nrcs most years. I do not have a loader on it as I also have a case 455c track loader so I use it for those tasks. The big deere is bullet proof. Always starts, has more power than I can use and does 5 acres of plots in an eighth of the time of the old for 8n. You can buy a lot of 2wd ag tractor for the price of the little utility ones you are looking at. I think 4wd is sometimes overblown, R1 ag tires are hard to get stuck. If you have hills or want to pull logs I wouldn't recommend a 2wd ag tractor, but if you want to farm a few acres, which is basically what food plots are, use what farmers use, its not little utility tractors use the money you save to buy another 10 acres of land.

I agree, if you don't have to haul the tractor, an older, heavier, 2 wheel drive tractor can save you thousands. Not only on the tractor, but you can buy older implements that are too heavy for a compact tractor for a lot less money than the small implements cost.
If you need to haul the tractor and implements down the road, a compact with narrow attachments will be a lot more convenient.

 

[SwampCat]

I agree, if you don't have to haul the tractor, an older, heavier, 2 wheel drive tractor can save you thousands. Not only on the tractor, but you can buy older implements that are too heavy for a compact tractor for a lot less money than the small implements cost.
If you need to haul the tractor and implements down the road, a compact with narrow attachments will be a lot more convenient.

Also, if you have much bottomland - and an old heavy two wheel drive tractor - you better own a four wheel drive tractor so you can pull the two wheel drive out when it gets stuck

 

[Tree Spud]

Forums are no fun if everyone agrees so I'll give a different perspective. I started with a 1950 ford 8n 6 foot disc, 2 bottom plow 5 foot brush hog, 2 row planter and a cultivator and a cultipacker. Turns out, I would rather grow brassicas and rye than corn or sorghum and don't need a lot of that stuff. Now I only use the planter for sweet corn and should get rid of it as racoons eat more than I can grow. A family piece became available about 10 years ago, a 1962 Deere 4010 bought new by my wifes grandpa. We have the original receipt. Its about a 90 hp diesel tractor. I got a pretty heavy 10 foot hydraulic disc for it. With that disc, do not need a plow. I also got a 14-foot mower for it. Pretty much disc and mow once a year, have been using a Great Plains no till from the nrcs most years. I do not have a loader on it as I also have a case 455c track loader so I use it for those tasks. The big deere is bullet proof. Always starts, has more power than I can use and does 5 acres of plots in an eighth of the time of the old for 8n. You can buy a lot of 2wd ag tractor for the price of the little utility ones you are looking at. I think 4wd is sometimes overblown, R1 ag tires are hard to get stuck. If you have hills or want to pull logs I wouldn't recommend a 2wd ag tractor, but if you want to farm a few acres, which is basically what food plots are, use what farmers use, its not little utility tractors use the money you save to buy another 10 acres of land.

I agree, if you don't have to haul the tractor, an older, heavier, 2 wheel drive tractor can save you thousands. Not only on the tractor, but you can buy older implements that are too heavy for a compact tractor for a lot less money than the small implements cost.
If you need to haul the tractor and implements down the road, a compact with narrow attachments will be a lot more convenient.

Not sure what could ever cause me to consider a 2 wheel drive high horse power tractor? While the back tires can get through stuff, the narrow front tires are only good for level, dry ground. Because I don't own great, tillable ag land, always finding low spot in spring or other times of high precip where 4 wd has saved me. Then there is winter where I am working the property with lots of snow & drifts.

Big tractors mean big gates, wide access roads, and lots of turning radius, then there is the weight of the equipment and where are you going to store and work on this large stuff?

Then there is how are you going to personally change implements like a 10' disc, 7' brush cutter,etc? There is a saftey factor you need to consider with the weight of some of these implements.

I work 10-12 acres of foodplots and many other acres of brush cutting, logging, drainage work, etc. where a 55-60 hp 4WD tractor is perfect. I am thinking of buying a 2nd same size tractor so I don't have to change implements, it would allow me so react better to changing weather and other conditions.

My neighbor down the road farms 300+ acres and has multiple 80-100 hp tractors. His yard looks like a tractor junkyard as he is always buying another used tractor for "parts". He is a great mechanic, but always working on his used stuff & his boneyard is ~ 2 acres.

 

[r49740]

Appreciate all the feedback and help. I decided on the Kubota M6060. Hoping it is in by end of October.

 

[Dukslayr]

Appreciate all the feedback and help. I decided on the Kubota M6060. Hoping it is in by end of October.

Congrats on your purchase. That’s a great machine!

 

[Okvet03]

Appreciate all the feedback and help. I decided on the Kubota M6060. Hoping it is in by end of October.

Late to the party but I think you made the right choice. I have the MX5800 and really wish I'd opted for one with a little more lift on the 3 point hitch. Mine is only rated for 2200#. At 3300# yours should handle a 6' no till drill. Congrats!

 

[buckdeer1]

I am fighting to decide between new or used and JD or Kubota,am trading my 30HP Mahindra in for something bigger and 4WD will be using a 32" tree spade on front loader,probably stay around 55-60 HP

 

[ksgobbler]

I am starting the research. Ive got 35 acres. Main uses for me would be pushing brush piles up tighter to burn, snow removal, short driveway maintenance, brush hogging, and a couple acres of food plots. My dad has a 25 hp john deere with the front end loader. It does most everything I want. I would like a little more hp for pushing piles up so I was thinking 30 to 35 hp. Be looking used since Ive got 19k to spend all in but I would like to spend less. Found a Mahindra the fits the bill but dont know much about them. Deere dealership is closest and I know the service manager but I want to throat punch the sales guy as I know him too. Kubota is about an hour away as is a Kioti dealer.

 

[yoderjac]

I think Mahindra is from India. I have a Kubota B2400 4x4 with a loader that I bought many years ago at an auction. I think it was a rental unit so i twas used pretty hard. It continues to run like a dream with little if any maintenance. It is almost never in the shop. I too wanted something larger when we got the pine farm. I got an off-brand Kioti DK45 4x4 with FEL and cab. For loader work, the things I see as important are weight, power, and at least shuttle shift, or even better, hydrostatic. You can have all the HP in the world, but if you don't have traction, you will just spin. My Kioti was slightly used, 200 hours. For normal food plot and mowing it is fine, but for clearing brush, it is too small. It has several design issues, the first is the AC. Because it has a glass cab, AC is a must, I went through compressors like crazy and it was always in the shop. The other design issue was the FEL. That was also something that was constantly in the shop with pins breaking regularly when I would clear brush with the loader. Don't get me wrong, part of the issue with the loader is that I pushed it for its size.

I hope to buy another (larger) tractor when I retire and it will not be an off-brand. I just took it in for a busted loader pin. I noticed that one of the brackets holding the loader arms had bent slightly. I think because the interior dimension of the bracket was slightly larger due to the bend, the pin had more lateral pressure which was why I kept losing the same pin. When we looked up the price of the bracket, they wanted $600 plus shipping. The reason is that the loader I have is old and they don't make that model so replacement parts are not being made, so they can get top dollar for the ones they have left. There is not a big secondary market, so raping a junked model is not feasible. I'll spare you the story of our Rube Goldberg solution, but needless to say, I did not buy a new bracket for $600.

As for the air conditioner, I finally just gave up. I had them pull the condenser to give the radiator better air flow (part of the design flaw), and now I just open all the doors, windows, and roof vent, put a fan in it and suffer.

My next tractor will be JD, Kubota, or NH, and right now I'm leaning toward Kubota. All three sell enough tractors to make finding used parts easier when they get old. My lean toward the kubota is generally because of my experiences with the local JD dealer have not been positive. The NH is less expensive, but i like the specs better on the Kubota.

My partner had and old Ford 1300 that finally bit the dust. It was a great tractor and efficient for small jobs. He just got a JD 790 4x4 with FEL. It seems liek a fine tractor to me in the class you are looking. I would not get this model personally. I've used it several times now and my right leg unintentionally engages the loader control. It is just my body size on that particular model. My partner is smaller and does not have that issue.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[buckdeer1]

I went with the 65HP JD,I would go 4wd for sure,I had a mahindra and it always ran hot.It got me by for 15 years but the JD is alot more tractor all the way from bigger gears in the front wheels to the more aggressive tires in the back.If you have the food plots covered it sounds like you need a skid steer

 

[MRBB]

just too add this, for anyone reading
rule of thumb for most farmers is, 7-10 HP per ft of brush hog, so a 7 ft hog would be pretty much at the MAX range of a 50 hp tractor, I wouldn;t want to run a tractor at its max , I don;t see long life, your way better going larger in HP from the get go, if you plan to run larger hogs like a 7 ft one!
and agree, weight is your friend in tractors
many of the newer one's just DON"T weight as much as older one's ,
many of the tractors of the 1940-to-70's of 20-40 hp, weight a lot more than modern tractors of same HP or even higher HP< which is why many of them older one's worked and lasted so long
so its hard to compare what a older tractor did , to new things IMO
and important for folks to really look at numbers on weight, and what there going to ask it to do!

 

[ksgobbler]

I think Mahindra is from India. I have a Kubota B2400 4x4 with a loader that I bought many years ago at an auction. I think it was a rental unit so i twas used pretty hard. It continues to run like a dream with little if any maintenance. It is almost never in the shop. I too wanted something larger when we got the pine farm. I got an off-brand Kioti DK45 4x4 with FEL and cab. For loader work, the things I see as important are weight, power, and at least shuttle shift, or even better, hydrostatic. You can have all the HP in the world, but if you don't have traction, you will just spin. My Kioti was slightly used, 200 hours. For normal food plot and mowing it is fine, but for clearing brush, it is too small. It has several design issues, the first is the AC. Because it has a glass cab, AC is a must, I went through compressors like crazy and it was always in the shop. The other design issue was the FEL. That was also something that was constantly in the shop with pins breaking regularly when I would clear brush with the loader. Don't get me wrong, part of the issue with the loader is that I pushed it for its size.

I hope to buy another (larger) tractor when I retire and it will not be an off-brand. I just took it in for a busted loader pin. I noticed that one of the brackets holding the loader arms had bent slightly. I think because the interior dimension of the bracket was slightly larger due to the bend, the pin had more lateral pressure which was why I kept losing the same pin. When we looked up the price of the bracket, they wanted $600 plus shipping. The reason is that the loader I have is old and they don't make that model so replacement parts are not being made, so they can get top dollar for the ones they have left. There is not a big secondary market, so raping a junked model is not feasible. I'll spare you the story of our Rube Goldberg solution, but needless to say, I did not buy a new bracket for $600.

As for the air conditioner, I finally just gave up. I had them pull the condenser to give the radiator better air flow (part of the design flaw), and now I just open all the doors, windows, and roof vent, put a fan in it and suffer.

My next tractor will be JD, Kubota, or NH, and right now I'm leaning toward Kubota. All three sell enough tractors to make finding used parts easier when they get old. My lean toward the kubota is generally because of my experiences with the local JD dealer have not been positive. The NH is less expensive, but i like the specs better on the Kubota.

My partner had and old Ford 1300 that finally bit the dust. It was a great tractor and efficient for small jobs. He just got a JD 790 4x4 with FEL. It seems liek a fine tractor to me in the class you are looking. I would not get this model personally. I've used it several times now and my right leg unintentionally engages the loader control. It is just my body size on that particular model. My partner is smaller and does not have that issue.

Thanks,

Jack

I can tell you a friend of mine owns the local New Holland dealership. They are not on my list. Everybody I know that has bought a new holland has regretted it. A buddy of mine bought a 50 hp (I believe that is the hp) with a cab. He lost the hydraulics 10 hours in. He sold a JD 3038E to get that thing and regrets it every day. I know several farmers that went New Holland and breakdowns cost them too much time so they went back to JD, Case IH, etc. I don't hear about many issues with New holland balers.

 

[Dukslayr]

I can tell you a friend of mine owns the local New Holland dealership. They are not on my list. Everybody I know that has bought a new holland has regretted it. A buddy of mine bought a 50 hp (I believe that is the hp) with a cab. He lost the hydraulics 10 hours in. He sold a JD 3038E to get that thing and regrets it every day. I know several farmers that went New Holland and breakdowns cost them too much time so they went back to JD, Case IH, etc. I don't hear about many issues with New holland balers.

For what it’s worth, I sold my Kubota L3830 (38 hp engine, 30 PTO), with loader and 5’ brush hog for 16,500. It was a 2002 or 2003 I believe and had around 2,000 hours on it. I ended up buying a larger (75 hp) Massey from the same dealership that Kubota. I’ve liked the Massey very well so far but wouldn’t hesitate to get another Kubota. In fact, I would have bought that Kubota 7060 had it not been for a fee interior cab things I wasn’t fond of. I had narrowed the decision between Case and Kubota until I got into the Massey and really liked it. I really liked the Case as well but it was a 3 month wait to get what I was looking for.

 

[yoderjac]

I can tell you a friend of mine owns the local New Holland dealership. They are not on my list. Everybody I know that has bought a new holland has regretted it. A buddy of mine bought a 50 hp (I believe that is the hp) with a cab. He lost the hydraulics 10 hours in. He sold a JD 3038E to get that thing and regrets it every day. I know several farmers that went New Holland and breakdowns cost them too much time so they went back to JD, Case IH, etc. I don't hear about many issues with New holland balers.

Good to know! They are less expensive, but I'll probably go Kubota or maybe JD.

 

[yoderjac]

For what it’s worth, I sold my Kubota L3830 (38 hp engine, 30 PTO), with loader and 5’ brush hog for 16,500. It was a 2002 or 2003 I believe and had around 2,000 hours on it. I ended up buying a larger (75 hp) Massey from the same dealership that Kubota. I’ve liked the Massey very well so far but wouldn’t hesitate to get another Kubota. In fact, I would have bought that Kubota 7060 had it not been for a fee interior cab things I wasn’t fond of. I had narrowed the decision between Case and Kubota until I got into the Massey and really liked it. I really liked the Case as well but it was a 3 month wait to get what I was looking for.

What were the things in the things in the cab you were not fond of? The 7060 is the Kubota I've been considering. I have not gotten as far as physically looking at them since a purchase is still a year or more off. With the current stock market, probably more than a year... I do want to know any issues you saw with the 7060 so I can make sure they are not issues for me.