The Recurring PTO Conundrum

[GarethM]

I've trawled the forum, possibly a little too much and I'm still undecided.

 

I have a small family farm, and a tractor with around 50HP on 540RPM PTO, which makes sense to use its red diesel grunt & ability to go almost anywhere.

 

Without going into all the details, I need to chip anything that cant be sold as firewood, so anything 4" and below.

 

Its predominately going to be a mix of tree thinning, overgrown hedges & branches. But definitely need something that has a discharge nozzle that can be directed into the undergrowth and the bottom of hedgerows.

 

I like the hydraulic feed system, but anything that's of any build quality fitted with hydraulics is way outside of my budget.

 

I've seen a few second hand TP100 & Greenmech CS100 which seem reasonably priced at around 2-4k including VAT.

 

Are these reasonable choices for second hand equipment or have you any other better suggestions ?.

 

Many thanks,

Gareth

[Goaty]

It's a good solution. I have a bearcat pto chipper about 12 years old. It fits the bill for what you require.

It's not a Modern animal. But it does the job impressively enough.

Instead of an extra engine to worry about it's belts every few years and new blades, but you would get that with an self powered chipper.

Mine is a 72854 off the top of my head.

[growforest]

What about a Welmac branch logger? Turn your "waste" into saleable, bagged granny logs and garden mulch. Around £3K new last time I looked:thumbup1:

[david]

If your branches are produced on the farm anyway why not burn on site or create Eco-plies?

[big chris the log]

I've trawled the forum, possibly a little too much and I'm still undecided.

 

I have a small family farm, and a tractor with around 50HP on 540RPM PTO, which makes sense to use its red diesel grunt & ability to go almost anywhere.

 

Without going into all the details, I need to chip anything that cant be sold as firewood, so anything 4" and below.

 

Its predominately going to be a mix of tree thinning, overgrown hedges & branches. But definitely need something that has a discharge nozzle that can be directed into the undergrowth and the bottom of hedgerows.

 

I like the hydraulic feed system, but anything that's of any build quality fitted with hydraulics is way outside of my budget.

 

I've seen a few second hand TP100 & Greenmech CS100 which seem reasonably priced at around 2-4k including VAT.

 

Are these reasonable choices for second hand equipment or have you any other better suggestions ?.

 

Many thanks,

Gareth

Hi Gareth how do you heat your house? What about a biomass boiler or chip boiler ,then chip all the smaller stuff for your heat instead of blowing it in the hedges.I have a laimet hp21 and they produce exelent chips pto powered no need for hydraulics much quieter than others because of screw feed and cutting.Just look on you tube plenty of vids.Finnish made and very solid.

Just athought hope it helps.

Cheers Chris

[PeteB]

The Laimet is a good call but I don't see them second hand at all often, and I would have thought that 50hp was too little? How much is one new? If they do want to use the chips as fuel then surely the fresh cut thinking's etc is too wet and, same as that Welmac polish made logger, storing piles of brash once cut until they are dry enough is a pain and waste of energy doing the job twice.

 

A Greenmech PTO machine would be about using finance to get a suitable, useable unit rather than "this isn't suitable but it fits the pocket now" type of deal.

[growforest]

that Welmac polish made logger, storing piles of brash once cut until they are dry enough is a pain and waste of energy doing the job twice.

 

 

Green wood can be logged into their bags and air dried - no double handling required. A good machine for recovering more value from what would be waste. I've no affiliation to the company. Default chipping always seems a waste of energy to me.

[njmusk]

that Welmac polish made logger, storing piles of brash once cut until they are dry enough is a pain and waste of energy doing the job twice.

 

 

Green wood can be logged into their bags and air dried - no double handling required. A good machine for recovering more value from what would be waste. I've no affiliation to the company. Default chipping always seems a waste of energy to me.

 

Watched the you tube demo and that's just the sort of thing I need. The small bags of logs the other tenants on the estate can have for their fires or can go in the biomass. At the moment anything under 3" gets pushed into a heap and burnt.

[GarethM]

I've recently sold my Laimet HP21, it was a monstrous beast, 1200Kg+.

It never created small chips, 4"x1/4" chips was the smallest I ever saw and it hated hedge thinning, branches and saplings.

 

I did look at the costs of installing a smaller screw which was nearly 3k with delivery.

Plus a new machine was in the region of 20k, I was offered a smaller PS-10 for approximately 3k.

 

I'm currently heating the old farm house using logs and joinery waste, I've a second hand wood chip boiler that's under a tarpaulin, just waiting for a new shed to be built before being stripped and then installed.

 

My plans are to supplementing my wood chip usage with extra from a friends tree surgery business, but really need a chipper on the tractor to get into the overgrown parts of the property, I can only get a tractor into some parts and wouldn't want to get someone else's expensive kit getting stuck.

 

Plus I agree about the double handling, if it's felled I'd want it gone as I go. Rather than waiting before it could be burnt, the Welmac is a nice idea but everything I sell is cut and split before being barn dried.

 

With all that greenery left in the bags, my customers would run a mile.

Edited May 26, 2015 by GarethM