Richard Cleaver

John Wolfram wrote:
Thanks for the info. About how long does it take you to cut the 9 acres?

It depends a lot on the weather, the speed that you like to walk at, and the implement that you are using.  I can cut about 2 1/2 acres of long grass on a dry, sunny day, with a 59” reciprocating scythe mower (about 7 to 8 hours).  With shorter wet grass and a 34" flail mower, in a lower gear, it takes about twice as long - and a lot more fuel.

Hi John,

Your original question is about people’s experience using different types of tractors and mower attachments.  Three types of mowers have been discussed in this topic; rotary mowers,  reciprocating scythe mowers, and flail mowers.  Over the years we have ended up buying all three types.  They are all still in use today.

We mainly use the rotary mower to cut an area of lawn directly around the house, this discourages snakes from coming rear the house as they don’t seem to like crossing short grass.  The rotary does an excellent job as long as the grass is dry and the cutting blades are sharp (ours also optionally collects the grass which we use for mulch).

The reciprocating scythe mower is used for hay making, clearing scrub land with woody plants, and for cutting long wet grass at the end of the year.  This mower requires very little power from the tractor.  You can run it in a high gear almost on idle revs.

These days we only use the flail mower when we want to cut grass and shrubs into small pieces for mulch or to make ‘chopped’ hay bales (30 lbs) which many people like to buy as bedding for small animals or for mulch.  The flail mower requires the most power from the tractor compared to the other 2 types, and uses more fuel.

Hi John,

I'm a big fan of walk-behind tractors.  We've had a BCS 740 (diesel) for about 8 years.  We originally got it as a kind of experiment to see if a walk-behind could do all the jobs we needed to do.  The big selling points for us were the very low fuel consumption (less than 1/2 litre an hour [0.13 Gallons]), the ability to work in small spaces like closely planted shrubs etc, and the range of implements available for it.

We have a small 20 acre farm. One of the jobs each year is to cut about 9 acres of grass and scrub.  We make between 400 and 500 small bales of hay from 5 acres of the grassland.  It’s a lot of walking but it’s very enjoyable and it keeps me fit.  It’s not that difficult to do, and I’m nearly 70.

We used to use an implement very similar to the one in your picture (in Europe it’s called a rotary mower).  From the picture It looks like it might have a 70cm or 80cm (30”) cut.  That will be a lot of walking!  We now use a 1.5 metre (59”) reciprocating scythe mower, this takes half the time and is easy work for the tractor.  It will cut through woody shrubs up to about 1” thick.

John Collins wrote:I have a BCS 732 walk-behind tractor with a tiller, brush mower, chipper-shredder, and hydraulic splitter. I bought it because unlike a 4-wheel tractor, it works well on a hillside. Our place has no flat ground, our large garden is on a slope that cannot be tilled with a "standard" garden tractor (that's been tried, if you don't tip it over you just dig holes and pull dirt downhill). At this point, it's the only remaining tool we have that burns gasoline, and I would really like to go electric, but I would prefer not to have to replace all the implements. They are all in good shape. Any ideas welcome.

John

I'm waiting for electric too.  I found this but I'm not sure if they're in production yet.

https://www.koeppl.com/en/produktauswahl/elektrischer-antrieb

We've kept bees for a while now and I get stung a couple of times each year.  Essential oil of lavender does the trick. One drop on the sting and any discomfort is usually gone in about 10 minutes.  It does depend a bit on where you are stung.

Lavender works for all insect bites but it's also very effective on burns.  It's the only essential that is safe to put on your skin without diluting.

Thanks Phillip.  The Koeppl is very interesting.  I'm not sure that it's available yet.  There is not much info.

Good point Jonathan.  Will be contacting Joel. He probably has his finger on the pulse!

Thanks, I read about that a while back but I'm gonna stick with 2-wheelers - for as long as I can still walk!


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L Munro wrote:Also checkout the Electric Tractor thread on this site…
https://permies.com/t/88534/Electric-Tractors

Thanks, I had a look at that.  I'm wondering if much has happened in the 3 years since the last post?

I don't have the time to build a tractor, I'm hoping someone will start offering kits for existing tractors etc.

We've had our BCS 740 for about 10 years and it's been amazing - and cheap to run.  But recently I've been thinking more and more about electric. It would be great to hear some thoughts on this.  Does anyone own an electric walk-behind or converted one?

I found one project but not much else.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLPDk1d_ALLQlUc6EenHuE4D80vNx6YM4

Come on BCS - we're waiting!