TO 20

[Chuck (IA)]

Good morning. Has anyone heard of running a flail mower belly mounted using the PTO in the back for the belt mounting? I have the tractor stored and can't remember seeing a front PTO. Need the flail mower to cut low hanging grapevines and chop them up in my vineyard.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[gshadel]

Chuck, I pulled a 4' pull behind 3 point hitch mounted flail mower on my TO-20 for several years before getting tired of servicing the little swing blades and selling that thing. I ran it thru my small vineyard and my orchard to mulch-up cuttings, keep suckers and straggler canes under control, etc. same sort of thing your looking for. I found a finish mower does an adequate job for all that, but get a rear discharge finish mower, not a side discharge, so your not blowing cuttings all over your vine trunks. A finish mower takes less HP that a flail mower too. A 6' belly or 3 point hitch finish mower will run fine on a TO-20, but you will find a 5' flail is as big as you will want to go unless your doing real light work.
The TO does not have a "front PTO". A belly mower would need run off belts/pulleys from the rear PTO. That is common, but pretty much commits you to using the TO just for mowing because it is a job to drop all that gear to hook-up any 3 point implements. I also had problems with the rear AG tires tending to catch canes and snatch them off my trellis. There were old "orchard" and "vineyard" tractors that had sheet metal cowling covering the tires to keep that from happening. I switched my vineyard mowing to a MTD and save the TO for bush hogging, posthole digging, grading etc. A friend on mine running a small winery with ~ 3 acres planted uses a pull behind finish mower on a Quad. The mower is off-set so he can get pretty close to the posts but drive down the center of the row, looks like a good way to go.
I live in Ohio, I grow Seyval, Chancellor and Millot, and some Steuben and Niagara.

George