I Have A Question

OnSiteGrading

my buddy has roughly 50 acres and wants to get rid of all the brush no taller than knee high mainly for fire reasons hes thinking about renting a john deere 5603 with a 8' wide mower is this a step in the right direction and if so about how long will it take him to mow it thank you for your time and advice

LNG24

Depends on how many obstacles he needs to go around and how wide the brush hog is.

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Larry
www.Lexie-Rides.com
www.SportTouringGear.com
St. Lawrence Properties

OnSiteGrading

pretty much flat ground few 10 wheeler dumps here and there and the hog is 8' wide

dakzaag

8 hours to mow it twice, A wider mower if your renting will pay off since the tractor tires smash the brush down and then the blades don't cut completely.

Mow it at an angle the second time. Could do faster, but then the brush won't cut as nice and spring back up pretty fast.

Good luck.

As an added thought, you can figure the time out pretty well, by figuring about 4 MPH and 75 percent coverage rate. Just calculate linear feet per minute and etc. (75 percent cause you cant use all 8 feet without making skips and you have to turn around etc.)
An acre is about 47,000 sq ft.

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D K & Sons
The maintenance schedule for brick
1. Stand back and say "man that looks nice!"
2. Repeat as often as needed.

Crock

an 8' swath traveling at 5 miles per hour.

that is 7.3335 feet per second or 58.668 sq. ft per second

211,204.8 sq. feet per hour (0r 4.848 acres per hour)


I would allow 10 hours for this job.....unless you are renting the equipment then allow about 30 minutes

OnSiteGrading

Thank you for your thought i appreciate it

dakzaag

Crock,
Check the math again, I came up with 4.24 acres an hour at 5mph and 7 feet wide, I have mowed enough open space to know you can do it in a day, but with an 8 footer it will look like crap and need to do it twice. Might be able to go faster than 5 but not much over 6.5.

Might have to figure two days, but I would rent it early and go like a one legged man in a butt kicking contest. Some of the areas won't need a second swath.

__________________
D K & Sons
The maintenance schedule for brick
1. Stand back and say "man that looks nice!"
2. Repeat as often as needed.

Williams Ex Co

8 nor 10 hours will do it..... Sorry. Pulling a 12 row planter at 30'' row spacing covers 30' per pass. Planting at 5 MPH gets about 110-120 acres done in an IDEAL day. There is no overlapping. It is precise. If you think your 8' bush hog is going to cover that 50 acres two times in 8-10 hours you are in for a real eye opener.

Crock

just as in estimating jobs, estimating mow time can prove to be guess work as well even if you have all the numbers.

dakzaag

Will,
Like I said, do the math. He doesn't have to stop and fill boxes or anything like that. My very worn seat of the pants experience from 25 years ago tells me that I did that in a good day.

Maybe my memory is shorter than my belt seems to be any more...

I do distinctly recall drilling 120 acres of beans in about 4 hours one time, but thats another story from another lifetime.

__________________
D K & Sons
The maintenance schedule for brick
1. Stand back and say "man that looks nice!"
2. Repeat as often as needed.

ConstSvcs

Why not rent a large CTL with a Flail Mower attachment and do the work in one pass:

http://www.usmower.com/us-mower-prod...wers-razor.php