When I moved my family to the country, I expected a tractor would be a near-term investment. With our 3-plus-acre wooded home site and a nearby 120 acres of woods, pasture and cropland, a small tractor seemed a necessity. However, I soon realized my needs as a hobby farmer were considerably different from that of the mixed livestock and crop farm where I had grown up.
I needed something that was dependable and low maintenance yet didn't require a second mortgage on the house. I also didn't need a lot of power, as the fields and pastures were rented to a nephew. I would be doing tree farming and light maintenance. What I did want was something that could maneuver well among dense woods and easily pull, push and lift up to several hundred pounds. With the two properties separated by about 5 miles, I also needed something easy to transport, and in my southeastern corner of Minnesota, also known as "bluff country," it needed to be able to handle rough, steep terrain.
An all-terrain vehicle (ATV) seemed to be the best answer. For half the cost of a new subcompact tractor, I could get similar horsepower, more maneuverability and much higher speeds. In my work as a writer covering agriculture, I knew that most of what I wanted to do with my land could be done with a powerful four-wheeler if it had the right features.
After spending hours on the Internet exploring tools and options, I found the final link in my chain of decisions: Concord Equipment offers the Groundhog, a hydraulic loader for ATVs. Most ATV loaders rely on a winch for limited vertical lift, but the Groundhog is powered by a hydraulic pump for up to 4 feet of vertical lift and a 300-pound lift capacity. Attachments include a bucket, a blade and a posthole auger. The three hydraulic cylinders give it down pressure, vital for digging, and deliver tilt control of the attachments. This was what I needed to do my farm work.
The next decision: What make and model of ATV to buy. I spent hours scouring user remarks on the Internet before I ever walked into a showroom. While there are many excellent ATVs on the market, I quickly narrowed my choices to the Yamaha Grizzly and the Honda Foreman. Both had the power I needed and were rated well by users. In the end, I went with the 499cc Honda Foreman, due in large part to Honda's reputation for dependability and on-farm use. It offers maximum-performance or maximum-torque continuously variable transmission (CVT) settings, each with high and low ranges, and electric shift program (ESP). CVT transmissions offer the best of hydrostatic and mechanical transmissions, finding the best gear ratio for each situation. The ESP, with its push-button shifting through four speeds, is sort of an automatic on steroids, giving you the feel and control of a gearshift without the hassle of clutching.
Work Around the Farm
My initial investment in December of 2004 was less than $10,000, including the Honda; the Groundhog loader with bucket, blade and posthole auger; and a trailer to transport it (5 miles) between my home site and farm. Both the bucket and the blade paid for themselves immediately, as heavy snows after the first of the year repeatedly filled in our 500-foot driveway. The 4-foot directional blade, swiveling up to 15 degrees to either side, easily threw most snowfalls off the road. The CVT high-torque setting slammed through drifts and lighter areas alike. When I hit deep drifts of 3 to 4 feet, I switched to the bucket.
With spring came gardening and landscape work. Here, too, the ATV-mounted bucket and blade came in handy as I pushed and pulled 10- to 12-foot-long, 12- to 14-inch-diameter logs into place for soil retention on our slopes and did finish work on terraces roughed in by a dozer the year before. The ATV also made spreading wood chips the length of our driveway and around our gardens easy. Here, the speed of the ATV showed its value. While running the wheelbarrow-sized load was slow, tractor-like work, the return trip could be made at 15 to 20 miles per hour. Similarly, deliveries of six to eight 40-pound bags of composted manure to the garden beds at the bottom of our hill were a breeze compared to using a wheelbarrow. Getting back up the hill was a lot more fun, too.
While I have yet to use the powered auger for posts, it did come in handy when transplanting raspberry plants in early August. The clay loam soils pack hard as the summer progresses, and I wasn't looking forward to digging holes for more than 120 plants. The 6-inch auger made quick work of the project, creating starter holes that were easy to expand as needed to accommodate root systems. A little spade work eliminated any sidewall compaction that might have otherwise stunted root growth.
Work in the Field
The real test of using the ATV as a workhorse came this past fall when I decided to seed an 8-acre field on the farm to trees. Our state forester told me that broadcasting seed in the fall would create more of a true forest situation, with each young seedling fighting it out for light, water and nutrients. Several state and federal conservation programs would cover much of the cost and pay me annual rent. In turn, the trees would serve as a buffer to help protect and stabilize a bordering trout stream.
An area forester would supply and spread the seed. My job would be turning that year's corn stubble into a seedbed with my ATV. I recalled interviewingMatt Kunz of Kunz Engineering about their ATV chisel plows for a Hobby Farms story ("Tools for Your Tractor," March/April 2007). I contacted Kunz to see if he was up for my 8-acre challenge.
A week after the corn was harvested, he showed up with his Arctic Cat ATV, a rough-cut mower and two chisel plows. The rough-cut mower made quick workof remaining stalks and taller stubble, as well as cleaning up field edges and mowing down brambles and young box elder saplings. Kunz told me the mower was tough, but tough was just a word until I hit a sapling too big to bend over. My Honda jerked to a stop. I backed up, expecting the worst—a bent mower chassis and an irate owner. Instead, Kunz was smiling with pride as we inspected the mower; not a scratch or a dent in the heavy-duty exterior frame.
The next step was to hook both fourwheelers to the chisel plows. The Kunz Engineering chisel plows are 4-feet wide, with a lead disk gang to slice through residue followed by two rows of four offset plow shanks each. Wanting to tear up the field yet leave maximum residue in place for erosion control, Kunz suggested dropping the rear four shanks, accomplished simply by pulling a pin.
I quickly appreciated how well-suited the CVT transmission of my Honda was for the job. My ground speed varied from 4 to 8 mph at full throttle as I pulled the chisels at 5- to 6-inch depths. We were plowing at about a 45-degree angle to the rows of corn stubble and the wheel tracks from harvest. Every time I hit a wheel path, the compacted soil slowed ground speed by 30 to 40 percent. Once I had plowed through the zone, the Honda would leap forward, regaining full speed for another 20 to 30 feet. The 200-pound loader mounted on the front end of the ATV gave me the extra weight I needed to keep the front end on the ground pulling.
Kunz had estimated the job would take about an acre an hour, and he was dead-on. Riding my unit won him over to the efficiency of the CVT transmission and the benefit of the loader as ballast. I had, in turn, been won over by both the rough-cut mower and chisel plows. They were definitely going on my "gotta get one" list.
With the field well prepared, the forestry crew showed up with a fertilizer spreader with a spinner plate on the rear and a small field disk. Bags of walnuts and acorns were quickly loaded into the spreader and, within a few hours, dispersed across the field. That was followed by a quick disking to cover the large seeds. Small ash seeds were spread by hand.
Soon after winter snows melted, I pulled in with my ATV and a small, rear-mounted spreader to broadcast seed oats at 3 bushels per acre. Using oats as a cover crop when spring seeding clover and alfalfa is a long-standing farm practice, and early oat emergence shades out early weed growth while letting in plenty of light for tree seedlings. It also holds the soil and shelters tender seedling tips from browsing deer. Oats and tree seedlings began appearing everywhere.
Battling Weeds
By early summer, the oats were ripe, and oak, walnut and ash seedlings were off to a good start. Unfortunately, so were giant ragweeds, which the state forester warned could affect tree growth. The problem was how to take out the 7- to 9-foot-tall weeds without damaging the seedlings. If possible, I wanted to delay the use of chemical weed control. I knew that even tolerant species were often set back by herbicides.
Sheldon Kinneberg, a local metal artisan, spot welded an 8-foot long, 1-inch angle iron and a matching length of 2-inch wide, 1/4-inch thick steel. I groundthe edge sharp and bolted it to the front of my loader.
Back in the field, I plowed through the ragweed at 18 to 20 mph, using this steel bar to slice through the 1- to 2-inch diameter stalks and, at the same time, scattering ripe oat grains as I went. While I knocked down the giant ragweeds, I also knocked down most of the oats and released a fresh crop of broadleaf weeds. In addition, the giant ragweed sprouted anew from their base.
The forester recommended an application of Transline, a broadleaf herbicide from Dow AgroSciences that has minimal impact on hardwood trees. I borrowed a 1950s vintage Ford Jubilee tractor with a trailing sprayer. A single application did the trick for the most troublesome weeds, such as ragweed and thistle. However, it did nothing for an even more pernicious problem, young cottonwood and box elder that had self-seeded. The forester had warned that these trees, if left to grow, would quickly out-compete the slower-growing oak, walnut and ash.
"You'll satisfy the CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) requirements of tree cover, but you won't have the hardwood trees you want," he advised.
A dormant application of Dow AgroScience's Garlon 4 would do the trick but had the potential to damage the desirable oaks and walnuts if misapplied. I decided to opt for the more labor-intensive, non-chemical approach. With literally thousands of trees in the field and a goal of 40 to 50 per acre, the forester suggested identifying small clumps of desirable tree seedlings and mowing around them. Then, he suggested, I could use a powered trimmer to take out the cottonwood and box elder growing among the desirable clumps.
The rough-cut mower moved up in priority, and I ordered one. It will be put to use this spring to help control not only the cottonwood and box elder but also the emerging weeds and field-edge brambles. I'm also looking forward to maintaining some hiking and riding paths through my wooded areas.
I'm confident that for years to come, my "little tractor" will do the job for me. It's proven to be an excellent investment and one I would make again. It handles most of the work I need done around the home site and on my farmland. Best of all, when the work is finished, I can slip off the loader and take a ride just for fun.