Tractors and Attachments

Tractors today are also made for the home owner in mind.  They’re usually the small to medium ones for lawn care, nursery work, landscaping, hobby farming and other small jobs.  For lawn care you have the lawn tractors, yard tractors and garden tractors.  They come in all sizes.   Medium size tractors can be very versatile as they have all kinds of attachments. 

Choosing a tractor for personal use basically depends on you property size.

• Lawn tractors do their best job on flat lawns up to 2 acres in size.
• Yard tractors can handle 1 acre or larger and has no problems with mowing on any kind of terrain.  Good for heavy hauling and in winter you can add snow removal attachments.
• Garden tractors are equipped with heavy duty engines and transmissions.  They handle everything a yard tractor can do plus adding attachments like a dozer blade, front lend loader, snow blade and snow thrower and snow blower.
• Zero turn tractors pivot 180 degrees providing the closest cut and which means no need to do trimming after.  They don’t leave circles of uncut grass.  They are very maneuverable and rugged.
• Rear engine riders are ideal for small yards like up to ½ acre but no more.

Farming Tractors

On a farm the tractor is the most important piece of machinery there.  It is the backbone of the day to day operations for the farmer.  They are used pushing or hauling heavy agricultural equipment for plowing, tilling, planting, harvesting, cutting hay, pulling hail balers and other heavy jobs that needs to be done.

Farm tractors come in all sizes and for many different applications.  Basically the bigger the farm, the bigger the tractor.  The utility tractor is the smallest type, usually 60 to 110 horse power.  They can cut hay, move hay bales and also load gravel.

The most common type of tractor on the farm is the row crop tractor.  They usually have 95 to 250 horse power engines and are designed to go in between the rows of crops.  They can be used for planting, cutting hay and puling hay balers.  You can even attach a front end loader for heavy lifting jobs.

The biggest most powerful tractors are the 4 wheel drive ones with 280 to 500 horse power engines.  Most of these come with 8 wheels.  Some even come with 12 wheels for the purpose of spreading out the weight.  This gives the tractor more traction and prevents the soil from compacting.  Crops do better in lose soil.

These big power houses, like the ones John Deere makes, can pull 60 foot cultivators, 45 feet chisel plows, 30 feet mulch tillers and 36 row planters.  Optional features on these modern farm machines today are the GPS or global positioning systems and on board computers for precision farming.  The tractors are guided accurately through the field never overlapping and saving fuel.  Essentially the driver never has to touch the steering wheel until the end of the row, but can run up to $250,000 or more.

Heavy Duty Commercial Tractors

Heavy duty commercial tractors sometimes called caterpillars, are rugged, high powered machines specifically designed to carry out heavy work.  Tractors are constructed not for speed but built for power and to move with traction on all types of terrain.  Many of the larger type tractors are equipped with tracks.

Today’s large track type tractors used for things like major excavation projects can be powered by huge 310 to 850 horsepower engines.  Sometimes these huge tractors are called earth moving machinery for the extreme demanding kind of work they do like tunneling or leveling a mountain.

The operator is enclosed in a high visibility, environmentally controlled cab for comfort and safety.  Today most of these machines have ac/heater, CD players, cameras, ergonomic controls and a full function graphic display for comfort and to reduce operator fatigue.

Tractors are also used for construction, road work, forestry work, excavating, and other commercial applications.  There are specialized tractors like, excavators, forestry machines, backhoes, wheel loaders and graders.  There are some many different things a tractor can do.