Rotary cutter vs sickle bar mower

[lordulrich]

I've got some areas of my property that I need to get in a mow. Right now all I have is a mid mount mower on my BX. Unfortunately some of the areas have junk the previous owner left and it is not really visible in the weeds, and I'm not willing to risk my finish mower.
I was planing to use my handheld brush cutter but I'm not about to do that, and the new urgency is that I also discovered I have a bumper crop wild parsnip. On a side note why do all the new highly invasive weeds have to be so terrible, what happend to easy weeds like buckthorn? Anyway, with the problems of wild parsnip which of the two, rotary cutter or sickle bar throws less plant material, in particular the direction of the operator? I am thinking sickle bar but I don't have experence with either. Thanks!

 

[Russell King]

Neither is a real good option.
Sickle bar will be loosing teeth if/when you hit the junk
Rotary cutter won't throw much out the front but you won't like it when you hit something solid...
I suggest you convert the brush cutter to a nylon tri blade or string and find the junk before you damage too much.
Can you walk the area and mark the invisible junk and avoid it while mowing?


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[D2Cat]

Ya, you better do as Russell suggested or you will be fixing equipment instead of mowing! You definitely have to remove or mark the junk. A sickle mower will be trashed quickly in what you describe, and a rotary mower not much better.

What about you tractor in the junk? You concerned about tires?

They do make spray chemicals that out perform cutting tools in these conditions!

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Chains on a rotary?

Chains on a flail mower?

Disk it all up?

Spray, spray, spray?

 

[KennedyFarmer]

with obsticals in the way it would be a challange for anything to cut that without damage. Have you tried sweeping the area with your FEL bucket down low and going slow to get those object out of the way or are they buried in the ground and sticking up like spikes?

having your local Fire dept doing a controlled burn/training excise might be another option

 

[sheepfarmer]

Wild parsnip and many more of my most hated weeds like to invade disturbed ground, and so my suggestion is to view this as a multiyear war. The parsnip is a perennial so it would be worth your while to start by spot treatment with roundup or similar by hand sprayer.
Long sleeves and avoid bruising plant. (Has anyone tried the new gel for spot treatment? Any good?) then this fall when the jungle dies back due to frost, get the junk out. Then next spring keep the area mowed.

Sometimes this time of year when the weeds take over and grow to 8 feet tall in a week I panic, but if you can wait it might be better in the long run. They do die back in the winter in our climate. If some part must be mowed, a flail mower with brushblades doesn't seem to throw much stuff up, but you'd still risk a tractor on the junk.

Good luck, I sympathize, have been at war with my weeds this week.

 

[lordulrich]

Thanks for the replies,

Junk may have been a bit of a poor description, the kinds of junk is not the kind I'm worried about tires, chunks of concrete, a old microwave, some steel corral panels and stumps (not really junk but probably the biggest reason I don't want to use my mower and I already dinged it up once on a hidden stump). I was hoping to get the stuff marked or cleared in the spring but it got away from me.

I was thinking of burning (already have a burn permit for brush, the FD won't do it for us in my area), but I've got buildings way to close for comfort with a burn (also burning does not take out parsnip as I understand it, really the only weed I'm concerned with right now).

I am under the impression that parsnip is not really well controlled with spray after it flowers, which is when I was first able to identify it. I am also a bit nervous about spray near the neighbors corn field (I don't have much experence with spray) but probably what I'll be doing. I've been trying to avoid disturbing the soil to much to help keep it at bay. It seems mowing is the most effective (based on my DNR site), which is why I was thinking about getting a more aggressive mower for the areas I don't want to mow as a lawn.

I had tried to move the debris with my loader before but I am a bit better at using the loader than when I tried before, I'll give that a shot again.

 

[sheepfarmer]

How big an area are you attacking? 1 acre or 10 or? I don't know anything about resistance to roundup, but maybe the root (edible if that's any consolation) keeps it going after the top dies back. The type of spraying I was advocating is what I do, make up a couple of gallons in a hand sprayer with low pressure, and drive around in my Gator and spritz on just the leaves of the most hated weeds around the edges of my pastures etc.eg poison ivy. No danger of it getting on your neighbor's field as long as you aren't doing this in a howling gale.

 

[D2Cat]

Rent some goats. A few post, couple of hot wires and let them have at it.

 

[sheepfarmer]

Rent some goats. A few post, couple of hot wires and let them have at it.

Or sheep! Why didn't I think of that?! Do I have a deal for you!

 

[KennedyFarmer]

Sheep I gladly take that offer if you were near by.