What is enough tractor for different acreages

I know this topic has probably beat to death, but when I do a search I get too many answers that do not fit my inquiry.

1.What is a good tractor for plowing and maintaining 50-100 acres?
Ford, MF, JD.

2. What tractors would be good for a farm up to 500 acres?

3. Is there a general rule for determing tractor hp/size for different acreage and applications? plowing, grass/hay, orchard.

It's not the amount of acres that counts, it's what you intend to do with the tractor.

Some people could use a D-8 dozer on 10 acres.

There is no specific formula.

How much equipment you need depends not only on the number of acres, but the time you have to do the work. Less time means larger equipment. More time means you can get by with smaller equipment. How many people are regularly available to operate the equipment?

Are you tilling up every acre every year, or is a large part of it in hay? If you're only tilling 1/4 to 1/3 of the land up every year, then you need 1/4 to 1/3 the equipment that you would if you tilled up every acre every year.

As far as the brand. I can't see that it matters. We had everything from Allis to Oliver on the farm. I'm guessing you want a tractor made in the 60's or 70's?
1960's I still think Oliver had the tractor to own.

Everybody has their own idea on how much hp is needed. Their is a 3 acre hobby farm right across the street from me. It has had several different owners over the
years. The goat farmer had a 1955 Farmall Cub with horse implements. He saw no reason to have anything bigger. Next owner had a Fergie TO-20. After that the horse
farmer had a Massey 44. The current owner has a Ford 7710 with a Cab.

I am basically interested in the amount of horsepower needed once land is cleared of major trees, stumps, vines, ect. A bulldozer would be short time use as well as a backhoe for digging out stumps.

For instance is a Ford 4000 series durable enough long term for all around use on 100 acres with mainly plowing, harvesting. Corn, cereal grains, grass, hay. I am mainly concerned about too little tractor, but also not way too much.

You mentioned hay. If you want a round baler and loader to lift them. you have 2 choices.
buy a small baler in the 4 ft mark and you would need about 75 hp tractor.

large round baler is best to use 95-100 hp tractor. I had 4230 JD. the thing I like about
the 5 wide large baler you can adjust the height and make it 4ft tall and it is a lot
easier on a front end of tractor.

you can buy a 100hp tractor in any make you like.1070 2090 or 2290 case, 20,30,or 40 series
JD, are nice and will do a good job on tillage with out spending all day on the 100 acre
woods

If you only farm 100 I'm guessing you have a job that keeps you busy and the farm needs to
be done on a timely matter. A 100hp tractor can be purchased for less money than a 50-60 hp
tractor.

100hp will let you pull 20-24 ft of cultivator and get the job done without running high
RPM on tractor and save 50% of the fuel. My friend has 2290 and uses my 24 ft and after
going over the fields he does he put in X amount of fuel and was complaining to me it cost
a lot to work and acre but his tractor was playing with it. I told him 3-4 weeks later when
he did it again he should run 1500 rpm an shift up a few gears to get the right speed.was
right on half the fuel. He knows because he goes to town to fuel up or carries jugs from
town.

so to me 100-400 acres I would have 1 100hp tractor up too 200 acres and 2 as soon as I
could afford it.

Now if you have more time and enjoy a square baler I would jump down too something like
1650 cockshutt. That size tractor will do all the tillage and can handle a 9-12 ft sickle
haybine for cutting hay. Cost of tractor in that vintage HP is less than half of the 100hp
I mentioned. Around here anyway.

I own a 1650 they go in good shape $3200-4000. 2290 cost 14,000 1070 is about $5000-7500.
I have way more tractors than I need but bought most of them for half what I can get for
them now. Buy low with minor issues that somebody else doesn't know or want to fix.

I like too look at cost per acre and time I want to spend on the field. If I can't make any
money on it I want to spend as little time as possible. I do trucking on the side and that
makes more money than the 150 acres I farm so I don't want to be in the tractor all the
time when I could be making money with the truck. I do custom baling and hauling bales so I
needed a good tractor for that and lets me do field work in the evening or I have sons that
can do it as well. To small a tractor would take a lot of time making hay with squares and
just not worth the time.

How fast do you want to get it done? Working full time day job, we have 4 tractors totalling about 400 hp to hay 130-200 acres including plowing / working up 10-20 acres a year. This means we can leave stuff hooked up ready to go at multiple farms which saves time.

If I only made round bales and land was all in one place, a single tractor would be ok in a pinch.

cjunrau,

Thank you for taking the time to elaborate on your experiences.

This is the kind of information I was looking for. Also thanks for everyone else chiming in. Anybody else can add their experiences.

There is no rule .

I do about 300 acres of tillage a year about 200 of drilling
small grain and grass mixs and alfalfa. I handle 2x3 bales
4x4x8 bales 6x5 round bales do it all with two tractors 70
horsepower and 115

These bales weigh 1600 pounds

Back in the day a full time farmer could farm 200 acres with 3 tractors of about 30-50 hp each.

Today everyone has a real job and farms 200-1200 acres, and has a 200-400 hp big tractor, and several 100-200hp tractors to get it all done around the real job. Time
is money.

The full time farmers are getting to be the 2000-10,000 acre setups and manage people who drive the tractors for them, 400-500 hp a piece.

So, where are you at.......

100 acre corn and soybean farm with a little hay, you would want a 100hp tractor and a 40-60hp tractor to deal with all the hay stuff, tillage, planting, hauling, angering,
etc.

Brand dont matter. Its sure nice to have a mechanic that works on them near, and a store that handles parts for your color tractor within an hour of you.

You want more modern features, live pto and lots of gears to choose, good hydraulics.

You can get by with less, again back in the day 200-400 acre farms were run well with 50hp tractors, but you will spend all day every day doing it, and with modern
yields and equipment you will sure be hustling to keep up in harvest time!

Paul

You asked a very complicated question. Type of crops? If field crops such as corn of soybeans then will there be tillage or no-till? Forage crops such as alfalfa? Will the
tractor have to pull harvest equipment for the crops or will there be specialized equipment? The one neighbor years ago went to the other extreme in terms of equipment
versus what most farmers did. He worked with near new equipment but opted to the small side. He worked 1,000 acres for a while and serious pondered downsizing
from a 6 row planter to a 4 row in a near conventional tillage system. He was not much of a people person (his words not mine) and preferred being in the tractor or
combine versus socializing with non-farmers which his wife liked to do.

I farm right at 100 acres this year, 40 corn, 15 oats, 45 hay.
My big tractor is a heavy 100 hp, I have 2-70hp tractors and a
50hp with loader. My grandsons help and sometimes I am a
tractor short to be convenient. For tillage you need a heavy
tractor. You can get enough hp in many configurations but if
they are not heavy enough or the tires are too small they
won't pull much. They may be great for haying but tillage is
almost a separate category.

Auger ing. Running an auger or elevator or such. Not what the spell checker changed it to. Sorry....

I would want a 100-175hp tractor, a 60-100 hp tractor, and it would be really nice to have a 30-50 hp utility loader tractor.

My neighbor runs 100 acres, and has on the lower side of what I mention 3 tractors. If you want to get a little bigger some day, wouldnt be bad to be on the higher side either.

Paul

I farm 200 acres with one 90 hp tractor and one 60 hp tractor. Corn, soya, wheat.
No custom work hired, just me. No problem. My dad farmed the same ground with the
same 60 hp tractor, and a 50 hp loader tractor plus a 40 hp old tractor, all while
milking 40 cows, again, no outside help....but he did have 3 boys to sit on a seat
when needed.

Ben

Youd make old John Deere himself proud. You surely get your moneys worth out of those two tractors. Have enjoyed your pictures and stories.

I guess it depends on what you want in a tractor, we used to farm 350 acres with an Allis Chalmers 7020 and a John Deere 3020(planter tractor).

I guess it depends on what you want, we farmed 350 acres using an Allis Chalmers 7020 and a John Deere 3020, always did alright by us.

Reminds me of when I as in jr high school. We got a new neighbor on the farm next to us on the east. When I got home from school,
my mother said they had called and wanted to know if I could plow their garden. I drove down there with the tractor without the
plow to see what they wanted done. The son asked where the plow was. His dad said no more than they wanted done, all I had to do
was spin the tires anyway.

Some folks are so over equipped they could just about farm that way.

This all is both informative and amusing.