EQUIPMENT: Terrific Tractors

Jeff Bowen breaks out the compact tractor for the big jobs - like when homeowners haven’t touched a huge tangle of undergrowth on their property in six months. “You can take the tractor and mowing attachment and knock it right down to four or five inches,” Bowen says. The tractor’s ability to do the “rough” mowing that he doesn’t want to touch with his zero-turns makes the tractor an invaluable part of his equipment arsenal.
 
But a compact tractor’s usefulness doesn’t end with mowing. Many of the same attachments used on equipment such as skid-steers can be utilized with tractors. “There are a multitude of tasks contractors can perform with a compact tractor,” says Tom Patterson, vice president of marketing and sales for Springdale, Ark.-based Montana Tractors. “It’s very versatile.”
 
For landscape contractors, a compact tractor would likely supplement rather than replace existing equipment, Patterson says. “The advantages of compact tractors are they’re lighter, a little more mobile and they won’t tear existing grass up too much,” Patterson says. “Whereas a skid-steer fits in better for rougher work, a compact tractor is better for finish work.”
 
“If the company is fairly new without a lot of capital, they’ll buy a tractor with a loader and a backhoe instead of buying a mini-excavator and a skid-steer,” says Sean Sundberg, a product manager with Cary, N.C.-based John Deere. “That way, they’re able to stretch their dollar a little farther.”
 
Most landscape contractors perform multiple tasks on a job site. A compact tractor combined with a loader and a backhoe can prepare the ground for laying sod, or do backfilling, lay pipe, dig out stumps with a backhoe attachment, or use a harrower to prepare a seed bed for a lawn. The number of attachments available for compact tractors is growing and includes aerators, spreaders, tillers, mowing attachments, rotary brooms, snow blowers, backhoes, posthole diggers, front-end loaders, scrapers, pallet forks, rotary cutters, finish mowers, rear tillers, rear blades, yard rakes, box blades and augers.
 
“If you have several attachments, a compact tractor would be invaluable for landscape contractors,” Bowen says. “For a company that does a lot of installation, it’s fantastic. Anyone doing design/build will definitely have a tractor.”
 
Contractors can increase their service offerings with compact tractors by increasing their ability to perform tasks quickly that might normally take longer with a smaller machine. For example, a contractor performing only a few trenching jobs might rent a walk-behind trencher, thereby limiting his potential to take on larger jobs. “He’s going to rent that for half a day and do 30 feet of trenching, lay some pipe and go on down the road,” Patterson says. “But the guy who’s going to lay a lot of irrigation pipe in a subdivision for irrigation of yards will mount a trencher attachment on the back of a tractor that can dig any depth he wants and at any speed he wants.”
 
The notion that attachments make the machine is true for compact tractors. But it’s the interchangeability of attachments between other machines such as skid-steers and compact tractors that make compact tractors an essential addition to a contractor’s equipment lineup. “There are a lot of people out there who have skid-steers and most of them have two to three buckets, a post hole digger and pallet forks,” Patterson says. “It may be a situation where they can’t get the skid-steer in for some reason, but they can get the tractor in. Instead of having to invest in another set of attachments, they can use ones they already own.”

HOW TO CHOOSE. Before buying a compact tractor, contractors should consider the tasks they want to perform. For example, contractors facing a lot of trenching jobs will need a machine with a hydrostatic transmission, because trencher attachments will only work with hydrostats. A compact tractor with 23 horsepower costs around $12,000, while a 49-horsepower model with a loader and backhoe attachments could be in the $25,000 range. 
 
It’s important to try out a compact tractor before buying one. Through a demo, contractors will be able to decide if a machine features enough horsepower or if they’re comfortable with the transmission type.
 
A compact tractor must be taken off the lot, experts say. In hilly areas, for example, it takes a lot of horsepower to traverse the terrain. “Anytime you can demo a piece of equipment, it certainly helps you,” Bowen says. “If you’re thinking of buying something, you should rent it first and try it out, especially if you’re going to spend $20,000 to $50,000.”
 
Testing a tractor on working conditions helps contractors get a feel for just how much horsepower they might need. “If you put it into a situation where it’s going to perform the work it would do every day, it tells the operator a lot,” Patterson says. “He may decide it’s the wrong transmission for him or the tractor’s not big enough.”
 
A common buying mistake on the part of contractors is they acquire a compact tractor that is undersized for the job. “Their biggest complaint typically becomes that the tractor won’t perform like they want it to,” Patterson says. “But it’s because the machine is actually undersized.”
 
Another buying consideration is the amount of auxiliary hydraulic flow needed for attachments. Hydraulic flow is measured in gallons per minute. Contractors using attachments such as a stump grinder or chipper would need a high-flow machine.
 
High-flow machines would fall into the 30-gallons-per-minute range. The measure of hydraulic flow is how quickly the machine can move an amount of liquid in a certain time period.
 
Compact tractors feature either hydrostatic or manual transmissions, though contractors increasingly look to hydrostatic models for their ease of use and smooth operation. “It just depends on what you’re going to use the tractor for,” Patterson says. “If you’re going to do a lot of loading, a hydrostat is fantastic.”
 
Manual transmissions require more steps to perform the same function. “In a gear transmission, you have to engage the clutch during loading,” he says.
 
“With a hydrostatic, you just pull up the truck, offload and pull back. Both of them have the same function, but hydrostatics have much smoother operation and require no shifting.”