Looking For Recommendation on Tractor

[Sml15steve]

Hi everyone,

I'm brand new here and looking to buy a mower. My property is just under one acre and I have about 6-8 very mature pine trees that are about 75 ft tall in the back and side yards. The yard out back is not completely level but the front and side yards are. Right now I have a residential Honda walk behind mower (It's an HRR216VYA) and it does fine all around but it doesn't do a good job at all with the pine needles.

I'm looking for something like a tractor that can generate a lot more suction and pick up these pine needles to save me from raking them. My budget is kind of low probably less than $2000. I'm also open to suggestions on how to improve the pine needle pickup capability of the honda.

Thanks for your time!

Steve

 

[motoman]

Steve, welcome . We have lots of doug fir and the needles plug gutters and fall everywhere. I would not change a thing . Neighbors who cut all their timber made a mistake. But the needles do create a mess. My dyt 4000 three bagger will blow dry needles to the fight , but does not pick them up. I do clear the long driveway and the street regularly. Needles that bond to the blacktip will not move (resin). The rider does pick up leaves well.

 

[Mad Mackie]

Pine needles are easy to cleanup with the right machine. I have both a GT with a hydraulic motor driven collection blower and a ZTR with a mower deck driven collection blower, however both machines are way above your budget. There are self propelled walk behind vacs available, but I don't know of their capabilities. Possibly someone here can comment about them. Maybe someone can also comment about mulching mowers on pine needles. I use collection 90% of the time and not experienced with mulching pine needles.
One of my customers has tall pine trees on a 1 1/2 acre lot and from spring cleanup, summer and fall cleanup, I collect 500-700 compact(as collected in the bags) bushels mostly pine needles from this property, fortunately I can dispose of this nearby. Pine needles decompose very slowly and don't pack down very hard so running over them with a machine is not an option. My machine has a front mounted, double tine JRCO de-thatcher that I use in spring and fall on this customers property. This attachment rakes out most of the thatch including pine needles making cleanup easier for me, but then I go over the rows of thatch with the mower/collection system. My ZTR is a Scag Tiger Cub, 48" deck, Scag 3 bag (4.3 bushels per bag) collection system with collection blower, current price of this machine new is over $11,000!!!

 

[exotion]

What you need is high lift blades, unfortunately Honda doesn't offer that.

Try taking the top blade off the flat one this helps with lift. Might save you some money.

If not I would buy a mower with plenty of torque, and offers high lift blades. For example my scotts (ariens) has high lift blades and doesn't miss a single needle. Oh I live in spokane wa home of all pine needles. The ariens with the briggs Intel, front caster wheels is beyond perfect for needles. Even side discharging it sucks them up chops them up into dust before spitting them out.

Again high lift blades and a low cut is what you need.