permaculture

[Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net>]

Thought they don't have the HP to really do earthwork, I have also been 
attracted to walking tractors as a power source for chipping and for 
tillage at a small scale.   Unfortunately in the states I haven't found 
them to be on the used market, making their cost to high (especially 
when you add on a bunch of do dads) except where would be expecting a 
return from them as a business investment.  Particularly when you can 
pick up a used walking tiller for under $500.  A good candidate for a 
'community owned' tool.
Paul Cereghino

darren@permaculture.biz wrote:

> G'day,
>
> I trust that this greets you and all well.
>
> That is an interesting, though I would think unrealistic thought. The lack
> of 3PL (three point linkage). I imagine that the draught control on a
> machine that would push, as opposed to pull a shank would make it very
> difficult to maintain a consistant depth. It takes about 15-30hp per shank
> to "pull" a keyline plow. I saw a photo in the PC Activist back in 2000 of a
> horse drawn Keyline shank....I would have thought also that for the money
> and if you really wanted to keyline/non-inversion plow then you could buy an
> old "Johnny" (John Deere) or Fiat 640-650 or something of that ilk - like a
> 30-40 year old machine for $3-5000 that is still more than capable of doing
> this kind of work for a small investment. 
>
> The Fiat 650 in particular is a ripper tractor - about 60hp - no frills,
> nice grunt and just works all day. We had one for years that cost about
> $8000 (Australian dollars - USD$1 = $AUD1.28) and did thousands of hectares
> of keyline pattern plowing and deep ripping (again using the keyline plow)
> for tree establishment. We only got rid of it cos we got a great lease deal
> on a new Deutz (cab, cd player etc.) - even today the tractor market is
> oversupplied and you can get a pretty good deal. On that deal we doubled our
> money on the Fiat!!!
>
> Another favorite tractor of mine, that a mate has incidentally just bought,
> are the Mercedes Benz MBTrac. These are a bit more expensive as a 2nd hand
> machine, but are amazingly capable and more of a hybrid tractor/pick
> up/UniMog kinda thing. They have front and rear 3PL/PTO, a neat deck behind
> the cab for a spray/spreading unit, high road speed (great for contracting),
> and crawler gear for deep ripping hard ground, mulching forestry/orchard
> prunings or rotary draining etc. 
>
>
>
> Yours and Growing,
>
>
>
> Ciao,
>
> Darren Doherty
> www.permaculture.biz
>
> Australia Home: +61 (0) 3 5441 5525
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>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of neshura
> Sent: Thursday, 25 January 2007 7:05 AM
> To: permaculture
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] tractors
>
> These are great! I don't need one right now but I'm glad to be able to
> bookmark it. Does a walk-behind tractor mean it would be impossible to
> rig up a yeomans plow?
>
>
>  
>
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