Tractor implements

I just got a Kubota L3301 HST tractor for my small homestead, 22 acres.  It has a front loader and a blade for grading the gravel road.  What other implements do people recommend?  

I use raised beds, so don't need a tiller, but have been looking at a wood chipper to deal with brush and maybe a log spliter.  Does any one have experience using these off the PTO of this size tractor?

I have a slightly larger Kubota, but very similar. It depends on the tasks you need to accomplish. I would say an added aux hydraulic on the front and a grapple would have saved my back and a lot of time, I know people who have simply wired in an electric grapple onto the bucket. Doing it through a dealer will cost you dearly but with a few hours of welding and some creative hydraulic or wiring it can be pretty reasonable. Totally depends on your needs, but the SSQA often you can pick up implements at auction pretty cheap. Pallet forks, spear, auger, you name it. It will require an extra hydraulic for most implements. My best option would have been to trade the 35 HP tractor in on a 50 HP machine that has front and back hydraulics, but I couldn't find a reasonable one for a couple years.

There is a whole discussion about tractors you might read through. Find it here...

Perry,

I have a JD tractor in the same range.  I recently added some clamp-on pallet forks.  They are by far and away the best tool for the money I could buy.  If you are moving brush, pallet forks move a lot of material, far more than a grapple will.

I have thought about a chipper, but they are not cheap and if I run one from my PTO, I then can’t use the tractor.  Personally, I like to rent a chipper, and then be able to use the tractor to move things around.

My 2 cents

Eric

Eric,

I have thought about the pallet forks, they are reasonably priced just didn't think I could use them except to move pallets.  Good to know.  Thanks!

I've got an 8"chipper on my 50hp tractor. Would advise against it. Too much money, too slow, capacity too low, hp requirement too high... can't use tractor to feed it...

Your smaller tractor would be even less satisfactory.

Would rent a huge one once a year if redoing, or in some cases maybe hiring a skidsteer with a forestry mulcher would be worth it.

I use my pallet forks about twice as much as the bucket.

For the rest it all depends on the job at hand. I am very fond of my subsoiler, the post pounder is infrequently essential, and the heavy duty hitch/log skidder sees more time on the tractor than anything else...

With implements, sometimes you are better off with a PTO machine, and sometimes you are better off with a stand alone unit.

A woodsplitter is like that, it is nice to be able to lift the splitter up, and maneuver it where you need it with a tractor, but it also means a lot of hours being put on your tractor when for the same price you could buy a stand alone woodsplitter and put all those hours on a small engine that was chump-change to replace. Both have pros and cons.

As for other implements, I assume you will do some mowing. A flail mower is better than sex, which pretty much sums up my thoughts on them pretty quickly. (LOL)

It is an expensive option, but I like my Wallenstein Log Trailer pretty well. It saves my back lifting just about everything and is very versatile.

D Nickols,

I agree wholeheartedly with your thoughts about the PTO woodchipper.  At times I have been tempted to get one for my tractor.  I saw an 8” model by Woodmaxx that looks like it would be just right for my tractor.

But I cannot justify it, and instead I rent a stand-alone Diesel powered 12” model about once per year.  My experience in woodchippers is that you want a chipper whose capacity is about twice the size of the brush you are going to be chipping up.

I used to rent a 7” chipper for chipping up my brush (max diameter about 5-6 inches in diameter).  This should theoretically work, but in practice it is slow going.  That 7” model rents for $150 a day and takes 2 days to go through my brush piles.  Inevitably, something on it breaks, just through the course of normal action.  Now I rent a 12” model that is a beast, easily chewing through my brush in a single day and it does not break.  Either way I spend $300, but I actually get my chipping done in 1 day with the larger model where I only get Part way finished with the smaller model before it inevitably breaks—frustrating!

I also like having the option of using my tractor to help load logs into the chipper which I cannot do if the chipper is attached to the tractor.  Finally, and perhaps a bit paranoid on my part, I have to wonder about the abrupt strains I would be putting on my transmission if I was running on the PTO.

Increasingly, it is hard to imagine a scenario where I would get s chipper for my tractor.

These are all just my thoughts and if they are helpful to you, then great.  If your circumstances dictate otherwise, by all means, do what is best for you.

Love the discussion,

Eric

Travis,

I LOVE THE FLAIL MOWER AS WELL.  I like sex better, but otherwise I agree completely.  I had one on my older tractor and I have every intent of getting a new one for my current tractor.

The model I have in mind is the Woodmaxx 5’ hydraulic offset model.  I figure this gives me a good option for mowing right up next to my living hedge and mowing slightly into the hedge without getting a face full of hedge.  It will also be ideally sized for mowing trails and still small enough to operate in the woods if I have to.

Eric

Perry,

Actually, the pallet forks are really handy and only cost about $150, which is pocket change in the tractor attachment world.  At present my forks are mounted on my neighbor’s tractor which is fine with me.  We share these things and frequently work on the same projects together.

Another relatively cheap attachment I intend to get is a 3 point carry all (about $150).  By itself it is of limited use, but it comes with pre-drilled holes and is easy to modify with wood planking.  The nice part is you can outfit the carry all to your specifications.  Some like a chainsaw holder, some like to carry firewood, and some like to be able to carry long, outsized materials.  Your imagination is your limit.  I don’t presently have one but plan on getting one and customizing in the near future.

Eric

pallet forks

clamp-on or better yet skid-steer quick attach, you don't technically need to use pallets, just a couple of logs will do to keep stuff up off the ground and ready to lift up again without hand loading.
My QA forks have a lifting shackle which is very handy (and secure) for hoisting things in/out of the truck or trailer.

3 pt. receiver hitch

real handy to be able to move a trailer around without mucking up your truck, plus tractors can out maneuver a truck any day.

3 pt. carry-all

I don't have one, but on the list to make, especially to use as a tool rack for the shovels and rakes and other implements of destruction...

Eric Hanson wrote:Travis,

I LOVE THE FLAIL MOWER AS WELL.  I like sex better, but otherwise I agree completely.  I had one on my older tractor and I have every intent of getting a new one for my current tractor.

The model I have in mind is the Woodmaxx 5’ hydraulic offset model.  I figure this gives me a good option for mowing right up next to my living hedge and mowing slightly into the hedge without getting a face full of hedge.  It will also be ideally sized for mowing trails and still small enough to operate in the woods if I have to.

Eric

I flail mowed all summer, and I really grew to like it. Of course that was (1) flail chopper, and I have had (5) children so maybe I overstated my point a little bit before! :-)

I would like to get a Grader actually, and then mount the boom mower on that. I would have to get an engine to drive the pump for the mower, but with this set-up, I could grade the gravel roads of area towns in the spring and fall, and then flail mow the sides of the road in the summer. This would keep me making money for a lot of the year for customers (towns) that pay within two weeks of billing. That last point sounds odd until you work for yourself, sometimes getting cash from customers is very tough.

Then I could use the grader to bust sod on my farm between town work, and get some grain crops in. It just seemed like with one machine I could do a lot of work with it. Iwould still need a way to harvest the grain, but I am working on that with a new thresher design.

A hitch ball on the 3 point is valuable to me. Its welded onto a single plow attachment and that is what stays on my tractor. I can connect a trailer by lowering it and lifting it onto the trailer hitch. Very handy.

Eric Hanson wrote:D Nickols,

I agree wholeheartedly with your thoughts about the PTO woodchipper.  At times I have been tempted to get one for my tractor.  I saw an 8” model by Woodmaxx that looks like it would be just right for my tractor.

But I cannot justify it, and instead I rent a stand-alone Diesel powered 12” model about once per year.  My experience in woodchippers is that you want a chipper whose capacity is about twice the size of the brush you are going to be chipping up.

I used to rent a 7” chipper for chipping up my brush (max diameter about 5-6 inches in diameter).  This should theoretically work, but in practice it is slow going.  That 7” model rents for $150 a day and takes 2 days to go through my brush piles.  Inevitably, something on it breaks, just through the course of normal action.  Now I rent a 12” model that is a beast, easily chewing through my brush in a single day and it does not break.  Either way I spend $300, but I actually get my chipping done in 1 day with the larger model where I only get Part way finished with the smaller model before it inevitably breaks—frustrating!

I also like having the option of using my tractor to help load logs into the chipper which I cannot do if the chipper is attached to the tractor.  Finally, and perhaps a bit paranoid on my part, I have to wonder about the abrupt strains I would be putting on my transmission if I was running on the PTO.

Increasingly, it is hard to imagine a scenario where I would get s chipper for my tractor.

These are all just my thoughts and if they are helpful to you, then great.  If your circumstances dictate otherwise, by all means, do what is best for you.

Love the discussion,

Eric

Yup, a 12"+ for a weekend or two annually would have been the way to go in hindsight. I really hate renting, and talked myself into it..

It's not a terrible unit so far. Just a fair bit of money tied up in an relatively rarely used item, and the efficiency in time and diesel doesn't work out as well as I had hoped. Not at all impressed with the manufacturer, the fit was so bad I had to drill a bunch of holes to get it assembled, the factory ones were so far out they were unusable..

My 8" unit can definitely handle over 4" of actual material, buut.. you have to have the feed running nice and slow with the RPMs up. And then you are wasting fuel going silly slow on smaller stuff, so you turn it back up... and every second spent adjusting something is a second not spent keeping up with the chipper while the tractor roars along at 80% throttle...

The one issue you mention that I *don't* worry much about is the abrupt strains; the flywheel of the chipper does a fair bit of smoothing, and the chipper is belt driven, so in the event of a full on jam the belts slip.

In practice it seems that the chipper will bog down from feed rate being too high for the material, or the feed will clog, *much* more often than a hard stop. I think I have only had two of those so far..

Now that I have the unit, I have thought about picking up an older beater 2wd tractor just for running it, and perhaps pto powered genset and pump once I find them.. we'll see.

D Nickols,

You are probably correct about the transmission (belt absorbing most shock loads).  I have to wonder if it is cheaper to buy both a PTO chipper and a tractor or just buy the stand-alone tractor.  Maybe you can find the right tractor for the money.  An advantage is that you can move the chipper very easily—just move the tractor and lower the 3 point hitch.

Interesting idea,

Eric

I learned my lesson when I owned my small bulldozer; I got a lot of work done with it...when it was running that is. Honestly, every time I really needed to do some major job with it, it seemed something was broke on it. None of it was major, but there was two days of operating it, and one day of work to get it back running. And it was a really nice bulldozer too.

It really is a catch twenty two, if you rent a piece of equipment, you have no maintenance issues with that machine, just use it, fuel, and call them if it breaks. That is really nice, BUT it also means you are pretty much renting it for one job, and one job alone. Ownership is nice in that you have it, and so you can use it anytime, and really do a ton of work with it that you never thought you would do with it, just because you do have it.

I am not sure where the cut-off is. Someone told me that if you borrow something more than three times: buy one for yourself. Well I have rented a lot of bulldozers and excavators and so I am not so sure that Law of Borrowing holds true.

Thoughts???

Travis Johnson wrote:I learned my lesson when I owned my small bulldozer; I got a lot of work done with it...when it was running that is. Honestly, every time I really needed to do some major job with it, it seemed something was broke on it. None of it was major, but there was two days of operating it, and one day of work to get it back running. And it was a really nice bulldozer too.

It really is a catch twenty two, if you rent a piece of equipment, you have no maintenance issues with that machine, just use it, fuel, and call them if it breaks. That is really nice, BUT it also means you are pretty much renting it for one job, and one job alone. Ownership is nice in that you have it, and so you can use it anytime, and really do a ton of work with it that you never thought you would do with it, just because you do have it.

I am not sure where the cut-off is. Someone told me that if you borrow something more than three times: buy one for yourself. Well I have rented a lot of bulldozers and excavators and so I am not so sure that Law of Borrowing holds true.

Thoughts???

It's a complicated issue for sure. Rentals here are likely much more expensive than where you are... and just getting a machine to me is a few hundred bucks each time... but there is quite a bit of worn out old iron around comparatively cheap.

I think much of it is luck and risk tolerance. I won't know for years if I am coming out ahead financially, having bought vs rented. One repair job could tack 20k+ onto the 30k pricetag of my excavator...


One interesting variable is resale. I expect equipment prices locally to drop as forestry has just absoutely collapsed here..

Right now, I'd give damn near anything for an auger or jackhammer! I'm tired of trying to dig post holes, or drive posts, into un-disturbed, rocky ground!

Carla Burke wrote:Right now, I'd give damn near anything for an auger or jackhammer! I'm tired of trying to dig post holes, or drive posts, into un-disturbed, rocky ground!

A post hole auger might not work for you then. They really do not work well in rocky ground because the auger has a hard time churning through the soil. A Tractor Mounted PTO Post Hole Auger is even worse because it cannot reverse, so if it jambs in the hole, and you might not be able to pick it up, or get it unstuck.

I can mount an auger to my log trailer which is okay. I can swing that thing anywhere in a circle, and with it being what it is, I can reverse the auger. Still it does not work that good. Most of the time I just use my backhoe if I need a hole in a specified spot. (Like holes for the posts on a pole barn for instance where they need to be in a very specified spot).

But I am not without suggestions to help your out Carla. For driving fence posts, I wait until spring when the ground is really wet, right after the frost gets out of the ground. When that occurs, I take a string and make a straight line, then measure out my posts. My fence posts are 16 feet on center, but that is just my farm. Then I start a hole with a lining bar. Then I put a big rock, or fill my bucket of my tractor with dirt. With all that weight in it, I can sink my 6 foot fence posts right down to the 50 inch mark which is perfect for 48 inch sheep fence. No swinging a sledge hammer. No fancy implements, just weight in the bucket of my tractor. With fence posts, you really want to drive them in anyway, not drill a hole and then refill the hole around the post. Doing the latter means you will be pounding them back in every year, drive them in, and they are in tight for life.

Travis Johnson wrote:

Carla Burke wrote:Right now, I'd give damn near anything for an auger or jackhammer! I'm tired of trying to dig post holes, or drive posts, into un-disturbed, rocky ground!

A post hole auger might not work for you then. They really do not work well in rocky ground because the auger has a hard time churning through the soil. A Tractor Mounted PTO Post Hole Auger is even worse because it cannot reverse, so if it jambs in the hole, and you might not be able to pick it up, or get it unstuck.

I can mount an auger to my log trailer which is okay. I can swing that thing anywhere in a circle, and with it being what it is, I can reverse the auger. Still it does not work that good. Most of the time I just use my backhoe if I need a hole in a specified spot. (Like holes for the posts on a pole barn for instance where they need to be in a very specified spot).

But I am not without suggestions to help your out Carla. For driving fence posts, I wait until spring when the ground is really wet, right after the frost gets out of the ground. When that occurs, I take a string and make a straight line, then measure out my posts. My fence posts are 16 feet on center, but that is just my farm. Then I start a hole with a lining bar. Then I put a big rock, or fill my bucket of my tractor with dirt. With all that weight in it, I can sink my 6 foot fence posts right down to the 50 inch mark which is perfect for 48 inch sheep fence. No swinging a sledge hammer. No fancy implements, just weight in the bucket of my tractor. With fence posts, you really want to drive them in anyway, not drill a hole and then refill the hole around the post. Doing the latter means you will be pounding them back in every year, drive them in, and they are in tight for life.

Thanks, Travis. Typically, I'd also wait till spring, but we've had a very soggy year, here, so what dirt I have (and can find) is pretty soft. That being the case, my goal is to get them in, before the ground freezes. I don't have a tractor. Or a UTV. Or a truck. Or an suv. We have a newer sedan, an old convertible coupe, and 2 motorcycles. Oh, and a wagon I pull around, by hand, to haul stuff where the cars can't go. And, I'm semi-disabled, so great physical effort comes at great physical cost. We need a tractor and various accessories. And we need them, 6months ago, lol!

I’m a buy and sell guy. I currently have four implements I need for a job and once it’s done, the implements get sold. The downside is that for hard to find implements this can be a waiting game on either end. Right now I’m waiting for a deal on a flail, and hopefully will find one eventually. By then I should be free of the money tied in the other implements. And right now I have wayyy to many. One the fence project is done they are on he market. Doing it myself saves about 10k per 10 acre section but I have that much tied up in the pounder (doing 10’ deer excluding so needs to be plumb high tensile) and end posts need to be augured down 3’ and then driven. The job determines the tool sometimes. Sometimes having one tool limits the job...

I will say a skid steer quick attach means more possibilities but the tool it attaches to (skid steer) is not a home hobbyist repair job (in my opinion). Often you can rent the implements pretty reasonably if your tractor can act in place of the skid steer.

Re:  Flail mowers and sex.....have you guys considered inviting your mowers into the bedroom?.... ;-)     I don't have a flail mower, but a functioning 3-pt snowblower can turn me into quite a hot mess, even in the cold!.... :-p

Travis and others who deal a lot with tools for fencing, I watched an interesting demo this past fall when an electrician came by to hook up the service from the power pole to our new barn.  When he was done, he needed to sink 2 rods, each 8' long, the entire length of the rod into the ground to act as grounding rods.  For sure this was not into rocky soil, but it was class 5 gravel and sand that had been packed (4' thick!) by very heavy equipment to create the building site.  Anyway, the way he did this was with a hammerdrill to which was afixed a device the slipped over the rod but then cinched against the rod for driving.  Hey....looks like I found a photo of the thing below.  And it got me wondering if a similar type of thing couldn't be made to work with T-posts.  Clearly the driver shown is made for round, small diameter rods, but it seems like the concept could be adapted for other styles of post.  At any rate, since we live on mostly clay, non-rocky soil, when not pounding a few posts by hand I too just use the front loader bucket to force them into the ground.  Save a lot of wear and tear on the back!....

I have not seen that, but I am not surprised that it works. Being a welder I have watched the Pile Drivers drive in Pile and Sheet Pile with vibratory tools, and it was pretty amazing.

I always though about buying a plate compactor, and then welding on a short piece of pipe on the bottom so I could use my log loader to swing over the fence post, and then just vibrate the post into the ground. It seems like it would work. 500 pounds on top of a hammering unit would sink posts I think?

But of course now my fence pounding days are over, no sheep on the farm anymore so I am off to new adventures. Just what, I do not know

My local tractor dealership is hiring for 8 different jobs. It kind of makes a guy wonder...Warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and talk tractors all day! ???

Perry Overton wrote:Eric,

I have thought about the pallet forks, they are reasonably priced just didn't think I could use them except to move pallets.  Good to know.  Thanks!

I have both a skid-steer type pallet fork that I use with the Kubota tractor and clamp-ons that are use with my smaller John Deere tractor.  Don't know of others opinions here, but I went a bit more expensive and got the aluminum instead of steel forks as I knew I was going to be putting them on and off again and as long as they were durable (which they have been) it would be more easily done with the lighter weight.  They've been very good and as Eric noted are a great clip-on for moving brush.

Travis you would suck at it. You are too honest to tell the weekender he needs a 75hp monster.

Do it!!! I wish our local tractor place had such a resource.

Tj Jefferson wrote:Travis you would suck at it. You are too honest to tell the weekender he needs a 75hp monster.

Do it!!! I wish our local tractor place had such a resource.

You know, me and Katie brought this very thing up this morning, I would not make for a very good salesman just because of the reasons you cite.

They were not hiring for that though. Shop management, parts sales, and tractor mechanics. I could do any of those, except the tractor mechanic part. I have 2 years of diesel mechanic schooling, I just never did anything with it, and went into welding instead. However, in those years, (1992) it was before electronics in equipment got out of control, so I am not sure how I would be at that. Maybe with some training...

I am okay as a mechanic, I just do not feel I am fast at it. The really good mechanics, they run into an issues, and in seconds they are doing this, that or something else, and the parts are on the ground. Sometimes I have to think a problem through. I always get there, I just have to scratch my head sometimes.

“I just do not feel I am fast at it.”

Neither are out local mechanics. They charge by the hour. And they aren’t honest. You would be a step up.

Tj Jefferson wrote:“I just do not feel I am fast at it.”

Neither are out local mechanics. They charge by the hour. And they aren’t honest. You would be a step up.

I have literally never met a fast, competent, honest mechanic.

Pick one, on a good day.

I am a very slow mechanic with zero training or related background, but I will spend a lot of time fucking with something before resorting to a so-called pro.

My issue is with confidence. I am pretty good if I have done something before, like putting a clutch in my Kubota Tractor. I had never done it before, so I was very slow, and kind of nervous because it is a pretty involved job (splitting the tractor). but now that I have done it, it would not bother me at all to do again.

I guess the real question is, just what do Dealerships do?

I heard that because of their high costs per hour, the work they do is 70% warrantee work, and oil changes. The latter seems stupid, but a lot of people do not know how to do that, or dare too. I was out on one of Maine's islands one day, and a guy owned a tractor out there, and flew a mechanic in to help change the oil. Now that is an expensive oil change! But the rich guy just did not know how to do it.

The only thing that worries me is the electronic stuff. I have a good friend that is a Cat Mechanic at a dealership, yet when I asked him about adjusting the clutches in my John Deere 350...a 1988 machine, he said it was too old and had no idea how to "calibrate them; because all he ever worked on was new equipment. I am the opposite, I know the old stuff but I do not know how to calibrate the electric over hydraulic servos they have now! That is what scares me. Mechanics coming out of diesel school would know that stuff.

Travis, I guess given my background I’m happy with the electric stuff if and only if I can get a shop manual. I had a blown relay on my kubota, and just ordered the three possible relays for about $100 and shop manual for $40. Two tested bad and I now have a spare (must have had a temporary short that blew them it was raining). Cost just to get it to the dealer is $100. Like you said it was a pain to get down to the relays (the gas tank and a bunch of the front end have to come off due tot the design) and that took a couple hours. It would have taken the shop a couple hours too. Saved me a couple hundred bucks. Like you said the next time would take under an hour because I’m incentivized to get it done not take hours doing it.

Mechanical, I’m still learning!

yeah the dealers charge $100+hr the mechanic might get $15
as far as implements, if you got a 30hp tractor or larger, these are the tools I find useful, not in any particular order
post hole auger, good for planting small trees too
plow
weeder
rototiller
mower
three point boom
loader, bucket always useful--pallet forks a big help at times
box grader or scraper blade
three point ball hitch-i built one out of some sort of old implement added a 2" receiver and a solid square post w 2 5/16 ball on top to move gooseneck trailer
a place to wrap a few chains around it and use it for pulling trees out of the forest too
next project is to make a three point pallet fork lift out of an old manual pallet jack and a pallet style box to haul stuff around the property
what else?
I'm sure there are more useful toys for the tractor but these cover most of the basics

My vote would be for forks. My old neighbor the farmer told me right off I should get forks - didn’t listen.

Two years later, got forks, and honestly, I don’t know how I lived without them. I probably use the forks way more than the bucket. Just today, used the forks to move square bales, a big round bale, the hay hut, some pallets, and some logs that fell across the trails.

Truly useful every day. Love my forks!

I’ve looked at the different chippers available for my BCS walk behind and warmed to the idea of one, then I realized...I can get piles of wood chips delivered for free by Chip Drop who are active in my area. Now having a chipper for my walk behind essentially gives me a self powered chipper I can move around easily. A question might be “what about chipping all the slash produced on your farm” and I think, why not just pile up the branches and let nature do its thing and create wildlife habitat at the same time. Another saving for NOT buying the chipper attachment is the savings to me in time...never have to detach it, store it, reattach it, move it or maintain it. By not buying the attachment in a sense I have put (kept) money in my pocket and gained free time I would have otherwise spent using the attachment. I do see the utility of a chipper on the walk behind as it is easy to move around and can be driven to remote corners of the property, but it does nothing I can’t do with piles of chips delivered.

One thing I see is someone buys a tractor and feels the need to justify the purchase by doubling down and buying more attachments that extend and enhance the functionality of the tractor, even though the attachment sits unused, quietly depreciating in value. I think the saying is “To the Carpenter, every problem looks like a nail” also applies. A lot of implements that are PTO powered make compromises compared to their purpose built cousins, some are very well suited. A PTO powered generator is a no brainer for us what with power outages being common. More that robust enough to handle the well pump, freezer and refrigerator in addition to some lights and internet in a pinch. A post hole digger, incredibly useful. One thing I don’t like about tractor and hand held post hole diggers is their implication in a lot of accidents, usually involving long hair or loose clothing. For that reason we decided that for any powered post hole digging we will at minimum rent one of the tow behind one man augers. The Toro Dingo type walk behinds or small skidsteer are not too expensive to rent. I see a $325 daily rental cost for a TX1000 that can do a variety of jobs well such as post hole, trencher, grapple, forks, buckets. So add the rental of the forks (for moving the fence posts around) & auger, the daily rate would around $525. Used that TX1000 is listed in the $24,000 - 34,000 range, add a couple of grand for the auger head attachment.

In regards to roots, I have a small grapple and as a test I tried yanking out of the ground a healthy 3 inch sapling with my BCS 2-wheeler but it wouldn’t budge. Thinking if I use mechanical advantage to change the angle of the pull I might be more successful. Was thinking a cable spool might add even more leverage. One advantage I’ll posit the two-wheeler has over a four wheeler is in pulling using mechanical advantage that converts the pull of a root upwards is a 4-wheeler will tend lift its rear wheels as the pull increases while the two-wheeler can handle the increased angle w/o losing traction.

Definitely a plus one on the flail mower, although it isn't even a close second to sex.  

Wood chipper or splitter should be stand alone--not only for the engine wear but because it is REALLY HANDY to use the loader AT THE SAME TIME.  Put the wood for the splitter in the bucket so you don't have to lift it an extra time.  Use the loader to push brush up to the chipper.

I did have a PTO splitter--but it was one of the old unicorn type (the ones that got recalled because they were especially dangerous if used incorrectly).  Looks like a giant lag screw.  It was cheap and would split the knottiest snarled wood that nothing else would.

Other tools really depends on what you are doing.  I built a raised bed former from a bunch of old junk farm equipment.  Bought from farm sales and seen in the weeds on old farms.  

I used a set of rear forks as pallet mover, bale mover, and carry all--I had several heavy pallets set up for it, one to carry small square bales to feed out, one with all my rotational fencing supplies, and one for tree transplanting.  

Some sort of seeder is handy if are doing larger acre regeneration.  

How could I forget!  The SUBSOILER!!  I bought the (relatively) cheap single point subsoiler from tractor supply, took a grinder to the big shank so it was sharpened in the front to cut through the sod a little easier, and used the snot out of it.  I would run it down the center of my raised beds every few years as my only "tillage".  I ran it on key line or contour in my pasture for regeneration.  I used it to bury water and electrical lines.  I cut lines to make transplanting bare root trees easier.  I had a 30 hp JD 4wd HST with turf tires and could just pull it through heavily compacted clay.  Dollar for dollar it was the most productive tool I bought.