Ford vs Ferrari Tiller for L3560

[eiresurg]

First, I'm looking to get a tiller for my L3560 and trying to compare the Land Pride to the King Kutter. The biggest difference I see is $$$. Why the heck is the LP twice as expensive as the KK?! I've tried watching YT videos and looking on the respective web-sites and just can't seem to find solid objective info. Anyone?

Second, the operator manual recommends a maximum tiller size of 60" for the L3560, L4060 and L4760. What?! My L3560 rear treads currently measure 68"--minimum. If I go all the way out to the outer edge of the rear tires we're looking at 70" at least. How is 60" the maximum recommended size tiller? Anyone successfully running a 72" on their L3560? Something is amiss here . . .

 

[Bmyers]

I'm jumping in to see the responses. I have a tiller on my list, so I would like to know the recommendations.

 

[BigG]

There are several factors to look at when you purchase a tiller. How is the power transmitted to the tines? Gear or chain with the gear being recommended. How many tines are there on each grouping. The more the better the cut. Do the tines run forward and reverse or just in one direction? Is the tiller able to be offset usually to the right which allows you to use a tiller narrower then the tractor but it still will not leave tracks in the tilled area.

The price seams to go way up on the wide ones and since they are not used often the offset narrow one might save a lot of money.

For most the least expensive one is "good enough". But some people love their Ferrari.

 

[ccoon520]

From what I have found on the ol' interwebs people seem to lean towards land pride.

Their argument seems to circulate around build quality, parts availability and service availability. For example, while KK is sold at places like Tractor Supply Co. that everyone has in a 30 mile radius (in fly over states at least), those stores do not stock parts for the KK equipment to repair it if something were to break. While on the opposite hand your handy dandy Kubota dealer would have parts in stock or probably get you them within a week or two.

At the end of the day it probably depends on your use case for it. If you are going to be tilling the garden twice a year and some patchy use on planting new grass seed or some other work like that both would probably last you a life time and you have time to wait for parts to take the long cruise across the ocean (or continent I don't know where KK is made).

If you are going to be using it for a business purpose where it would be used 2-4 hours a day for a month or more Land Pride would probably be your go to because every day your equipment is down is a day of lost money so the reliability and ease of getting parts is more paramount.

Personally I have 5 implements for my tractor (so far) and 4 of them are land pride and the reason why varies. I got LP Forks and Finish Mower because I found them for a great price on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. The LP Rear Blade came with the Tractor but I use it a lot during the winter and to maintain the drive. The Rotary Cutter I got as an LP too and I got it because it is going to get abused especially with the property I have so I needed to be able to get parts, rely on it to work in really piss poor conditions and come back for more. The only implement that isn't LP is the Broadcast Spreader. It gets used 2 maybe 3 times a year and if it is out of commission I can wait for the slow boat because it is just out of lazyness that I don't use the push spreader really.

So all in all I think it comes down to it depends. If you are using it for business I'd go LP. Otherwise go with whichever your bank account, project timeline and patience can afford.

TTWT uses a KK tiller and I haven't seen a complaint come from him on it and as far as I have found it seems that tractor 3pt implements (so far) suffer less from the cheapening of things to the extreme like walmart trimmers and mowers suffer from. The environment they are put through demands at least some ruggedness even from the cheapest parts you can buy.

 

[bucktail]

My opinion. Landpride is better quality. The welds look iffy on king kutter. I haven't broken any yet but that hasn't been the experience of everyone on the board and I really haven't used my stuff that much. The paint on kk sucks too. It fades and chips. King kutter is still my choice based on price point though. Watch the welds and I don't care what my attachments look like as long as they work.

For the tiller the rule of thumb is that you want about 5 PTO hp per foot. My tractor is 15 at the flywheel which puts it around 12 or 13 at the PTO. If I bought a tiller I'd go 4 feet to cover my tracks with the understanding that I'd have to take multiple passes starting shallow and or slow down. If you have loose sandy soil it might be fine anyway.

 

[chim]

I have a project that will require a tiller for a day, so I'll rent it from a nearby Sunbelt Rental yard. No real experience with any tillers.

I have owned a couple LandPride RFM's and can say they are very well built.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

It's not a matter of covering your tracks with a tiller, as much as it is HP required to run a tiller.

You don't have enough HP to run a 70" rototiller!

 

[SDT]

It's not a matter of covering your tracks with a tiller, as much as it is HP required to run a tiller.

You don't have enough HP to run a 70" rototiller!

Bingo.

Required HP and weight largely determine recommended implement size.

Convenience is not a factor.

SDT

 

[Abe]

I can't speak to which brand of tiller might be the better one. I have an L2250 with 26.5 HP at the engine, 21 HP at the PTO. I run a 66" tiller behind my L2250 with no power issues. I think type of soil conditions will also play a factor as to how wide an implement your tractor will be able to handle.

 

[NHSleddog]

I run a LP 60" on my B2650 and it works great. I had a KK on my old tractor.

Hard to explain this but the LP spins faster at 540 PTO RPM than the KK did on my old tractor. Because of the speed, it is very easy to move along at a constant speed with the LP, on the KK it was more stop and go.

YMMV.

 

[GeoHorn]

A tiller may NOT be the first implement you should consider.
What sort of area are you planning to till...?? Pasture? With turf? A tiller ain’t gonna clear out the grass, it’s only gonna wad-up in your tines and you’re gonna be on your knees with a knife trying to cut the vegetation out of your tiller.

You’re gonna need a grader or scraper or a plow to turn that over and kill the vegetation before you’ll need a tiller.

 

[BigG]

Messick's just put out a video this week. It might help someone with their tiller questions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGoeOUXajZY

 

[tunin]

Hi guys, just my 5 cents... we have been in the vineyards/wine and Olive trees and olive oil business for generations, it might be a different soil where I live... the Mediterranean, lots of sun ad dry climate... We had different tractors over the years, the one thing that they had in common was that they were narrow due to the rows... small and quite weak... due to the width... vineyards are quite old 80+ years some, planted very, very narrow...

Anyhow, researching upgrades over the years after buying our first orange tractor, 17hp bultra... had the old Euro/US style blade tiller, we struggled, we were certain we made a wrong decision buying this small tractor...

The tractor came with a 155cm japanese tiller that was kn a bad shape, it was to wide so I had to “shrink” it to try it... plus it did not have the three point connection but a japanese 2 point style and the tractor was already converted...

So I did it, “shrieked” down the tiller, added the three point connection and I can tell you one thing, the tractor runs it at idle throttle. It is unreal... I am sure it could run a double sized tiller with these japanese style blades...

And it tills so much nicer than the Euro/US style blade tiller... it seams to use the curve to cut little at a time compared to EU/US one hitting the ground to till.

we have not mounted the other tiller since.

Sorry post this stretched.

All I am saying, go outside the box and try it out...

 

[tunin]

This is the type of blades I am talking about...
https://www.k-taiyo.co.jp/en/business/

 

[GreensvilleJay]

First 'selling' price has little to do with design/quality/contruction of 'things'. Pricing is generally about the 'bottom line'... profit. There's entire librarys filled with books about marketing and profit..., that's another story..

With tillers size matters. Your L3560 is about 35HP, so similar to my D14. I run a 60" ( 145cm) tiller and it does a great job. It's an 'offset' tiller, meaning the tines can be moved ( offset) left or right from center. This allows you to till the soil where one of the tire's been. Now if you're doing veggies, you can leave the tire track there and it becomes the footpath with 5' wide planting beds, so 2.5' to center of bed, easy hoeing/picking access. Tillers are rated in HP and you're not supposed to use a 100HP tractor to power a 30HP tiller. I've never really understood that, as all new tiller's have some form of protection, slip clutches or shear pins.

Tillers will not easily chew up hard virgin sod into a garden... you need a plow to cut and turnover the sod, wait several days, disc, wait a couple days THEN run the tiller.... Start with a shallow till, then you can go deeper. Also go in a N-S, then E-W, S-N, W-E pattern of tilling if possible. This will help keep the soil level and chews it up better.

 

[conropl]

For what it is worth, I have a L3560HSDC, and a 72" tiller from TSC. I have not had any issues with the 72" tiller.

Whether it works for you, depends on your soil. I live in West Michigan (more north). Our soil is more sandy with a small amount of clay mixed in. It is not difficult to turn over. However, I have had construction sights in places like Tennessee and Texas that was very hard clay. In those areas I would think the 72" would be to large for the L3560. But for what I us it for, I have had no issues. If you are unsure, then the 60" would probably not be an issue for anything you want to tackle.

As far as the LP vs. KK. I was looking at LP and wanted to go that way, but in the end I got Countryline with a good sale, and figured I could by two of them for the price of one LP. The Countryline did not seem that cheap and was simular to KK. So it seemed like a no brainer. I have had it for 3 years now, and have had zero issues. It has even spit out some decent sized field stones without issue so far.

Sent from my SM-J737V using Tapatalk

 

[timdan94]

I'm running a king kutter 60" on an L2501 HST with no issues. I used it to break new ground for a food plot and only had issues with large rocks getting jammed not a lack of hp.

 

[SMKK]

TTwT just posted a video on his tiller and he has a KK and a Tuffline. One thing he mentioned about his KK is that it is not as robust as the Tuffline (starts around 3:26) and he discusses a few items he has learned over time

 

[eiresurg]

Thank you all for sharing your wisdom and experience. In the end, I went with the Land Pride RTR1266 based on the advice of local farming friends and my local Kubota dealer. Like conropl, we have sandy soil with few rocks. I spent several hours confirming the PTO shaft was cut to proper length, did a "run-in" on the clutch, greased everything, and got the tiller hooked up and leveled. Hoping to give it a run in the next few days!

 

[GreensvilleJay]

Be sure to have several spare shearpins !! Rocks the size of softballs will jam the tiller and you'll spend an hour wondering WHERE did you put them ???
Some tillers have clutches ,others shearpins...