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QUESTION:I live on 80 acres, and want to start a tree nursery. Since time
to market is long, I have to start part time, and as a consequence don't
have huge amounts of money to throw at this.
My plan is to start, this spring, with a thousand trees.
This is enough to discover many areas of ignorance, but not so much
that I'll be broke if a Giant Porcupine eats my entire crop.
With experience comes more trees.
I've got two target markets: 4-8' field grown trees for the professional
landscaper, and container grown trees and shrubs for resale to garden
centres. Containers will be palleted where practical to make it
easier to move to the hoophouse for winter, and to make loading during
the spring rush faster.
So a tractor needs to do the following tasks:
1. Prepare field strips for planting. (Plow, disk, harrow.)
2. Cultvate near trees after planting.
3. Mow green strips between rows.
4. Prune roots. (Modified bucket)
5. Set fence posts.
6. Move mulch, sand, peatmoss, pallets.
7. Pull pallet (bale) wagon.
8. Move snow.
9. Power chipper.
10. Replace/augment present garden tractor for working the garden.
11. Help in maintaining my woodlot.
12. Run a small tree spade.
13. Pull a sprayer.
At present I'm using an Allis Chalmers 416 garden tractor. It's ok as
a lawn mower, but is only a mediocre as a rototiller and as a snow
blower. It's too slow to prepare fields for a thousand trees.
I've used it it with a kumatic sled for hauling logs, but
it's somewhat underpowered for that, and it takes only about 4" of snow
to get stuck.
The pallet moving, loader functions, root pruning, tree spade and wood lot
require manoeverability.
The plowing/cultivating mean more HP than my
garden tractor has. How many, I'm not sure. (General model is that
trees are planted in double rows, with room to access from one side,
and room to grow and get minimal cultivation equipment between.) This
works out to plowing a 6-8' strip. Since plowing is one of the less
frequently done operations, doing more passes of a narrow width is possible.
I suspect that raw HP is the least of my worries.
Winter work means traction. My AC has shown me by counter example that
I want front wheel assist. I suspect that this will be very useful in
the spring rush also. Heavier is better for this.
Chopper, mower, posthole digger mean PTO.
Moving pallets and moving mulch and root pruning and space
mean some easy to change bucket. (Ok, spade and root pruning may run off
3 pt hitch.)
I'm sure that, like the time I bought my radial arm saw, there will
be another million jobs that occur to me after I buy it.
I'm seriously considering a New Holland 2120.
Specs: About 40 HP, About 4000 lbs, 9 gpm hydraulics, separate hydralics
for power steering. FWA. Short enough for good manoeverability,
heavy enough for good traction.
1. What experience do others have with this model in particular and
NH in general?
2. Does this tractor fit my needs? Overkill?
3. This comes iwth several transmission options. The loader
use means I want the hydraulic shuttle, I think.
4. What other brands/models should I be looking at?
ANSWER: If you were loading trucks at the gravel pit, yes, probably. In general
use which includes some loader, some not, I've found no issues with a
manual (6/4 Ford) tranny - it's a straight shot from forward to reverse.
And such a tranny ages better than the other sort...(mine is 33)
You might want to look at a Bobcat (or generically, a skid-steer loader)
with landscape accessories, as being a lot more maneverable, and quite
possibly having a more cabaple loader. Many ag loaders are quite wimpy.
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