I’m having the 8 acres I own on the east coast of the Big Island in Hawaii cleared of the 8 foot grass that is now growing on it. With an annual average of 150 inches of rain and a year round growing season, the grass grows back fast.
What is the best type of mowing machinery (how wide and how much HP) for keeping the grass under control before I get my fencing in and let some sheep do the work?
Thanks!
We live on fifteen acres, and I cut five acres of it twice a month. I use an old Simplicity garden tractor with 60 inch deck under the tractor. I also have a cheap Cub Cadet riding mower with 42 inch deck that I use as a backup.
A traditional garden tractor has pros and cons. It is somewhat slow and doesn’t maneuver very well. But it is very powerful and (most importantly) I can use it for other things, like hauling things in a wagon. It also has a PTO drive.
If all you want to do is cut grass, and you want to do it quickly, I would suggest getting a zero-turn mower. If you want something that is more multi-purpose, get a garden tractor.
That is a lot of land to mow but there are a few different options and you need to give some more info. With 150 inches of rain a year, I assume this grass is going to be really thick and wet a lot of the time. That makes a big difference over a drier and slow growing area. That much thick, wet grass will kill lesser lawn tractors in short order so it sounds like your requirements at the higher end of options. A $1800 riding lawn tractor built for suburban lawns won’t last that long in that environment. I got a 19hp John Deere lawn tractor and love it but I wouldn’t put it up against that task by any means. It gets into trouble when our 2 acres of wet get high and wet.
Do you want landscape quality mowing over the whole thing or do you just want it cut? You may be better off with a regular lawn tractor for work close to the house and a full-blown farm tractor (used preferably) with a Bushhog attachment for the bulk of the work like one of these. They aren’t cheap but a real tractor with a Bushhog will cut small trees and vines as well as grass so it can clear land quickly but the end result doesn’t look as good as a true mower. A tractor with a Bushhog attachment is best for fairly flat land with no large rocks or other obstacles. You can still destroy one by hitting rocks and tractors can be deadly if you try to use them on uneven land with lots of obstacles. I have known a couple of people that died flipping a tractor on uneven ground.
Those are cool but it sounds like he would need a professional quality one that costs at least 5K if bought new. They do work well in general and they are very fast. I have seen landscape crews cut an acre with one in less than 20 minutes but that is still several hours work for 8 acres and I don’t know how well they do with rougher land with really thick and wet grass. A full sized tractor has the power to cut through that stuff even more quickly but the result doesn’t look as good and they are much harder to maneuver and potentially more dangerous.
Its not just grass, it’s 8 foot grass, so i think a mower is out. you’ll probably have to pick a Bushhog then get a tractor with enough HP to turn it. If you’re going to get sheep (was that serious?), then you may want to just rent a bushhog or hire someone to do it, in which case whoever you talk to will know whether their equipment will work or not.
As I read the OP, he’s hiring someone to cut the eight-foot grass and then wants a machine to maintain it himself.
A regular lawn mower won’t be able to maintain grass that is cut from 8 feet at all. I have destroyed many lawn mowers over time trying to do less than that. Grass that is eight feet tall isn’t grass in layman’s terms. It is basically a rain forest pasture of mixed plants and the piles of mulch that the initial cut will produce will make it impossible to mow with any sort of a regular mower. You have to use a real tractor for that.
If you mow it regularly, regular grasses that are mowable will take over on their own or you could help the process by overseeding the entire area with a hay crop but that is very expensive for such a large area. I would recommend a true tractor with a bushhog with some type of regular mower for closer in areas. It will costs many thousands of dollars to buy the right equipment on your own. It may be more cost effective just to pay someone to mow it with heavy equipment for the first two years until it establishes itself with lower growing grasses. That won’t be cheap either but it is much cheaper than buying and maintaining heavy equipment.
Good point.
I think we need more info from the OP.
Because the type of mower depends on the type of grass, amount of rainfall, etc., I would suggest the OP talk to his neighbors who own similar land, and ask them what they use.
Could you have someone harvest it as straw or hay?
To be honest, don’t worry about trimming the damned grass, spend the money to fence it in and run the sheep on it. If it has the full height grass mix, you can borrow a flock of goats to trim it down [goats graze hardier stuff and will actually eat large brush and small trees, sheep will only graze sedges and grasses, in general]
Trying to keep the regular mix of stuff cut would take either paying a farmer to come in with industrial harvesting equipment or more money than you would pay for fencing.
I made good money with my uncles tractor and a bush hog. A bush hog goes through four to six foot grass and light brush like butter.
like this. IIRC we had a 60" bush hog
http://www.chinaepagenerator.com/china/3hitch-bush-hog.html
here’s the bush hog web site. the sixty inch mower for small tractors. This is the heavier duty one that can handle light brush and grass.
http://www.bushhog.com/product-line/rotary-cutters/100-rotary-cutters-single-spindle-rz160.html