looking at new mid pivot mowers

Looking to replace a case IH 8312 disk mower co. Its been a good one untill last year, started having gear problems in the cutter bar. Looked at a JD 946mid pivot moco with free swinging impeller tines that they want to sell to me. I was woundering what your thoughts are using the tines instead of rollers? Also how often do you have to change tines,bolts,bushings? Thats my biggest worry.

they are for grass if you have alfalfa it will beat the leaves off -- my brother has one and wishes he never got it his is a NH 12" cut and takes for ever to dry it down for baling - we r in il

Bought a new JD 916 with impellers, about 11 years ago. Mow about 200 acres with it a year and have had to replace about 4-5 impellers....mine are the first style welded steel and usually break 1/2 the "V" off. the newer style look like cast to me....don't know how they will hold up.

we dont have any alfalfa. Cut a little over 500 acres. Thanks for the comments.

I have a 946 with the impeller system and have mowed alfalfa with it. Contrary to what some say or think, the impellers DO NOT beat off the leaves of the alfalfa if the machine is set correctly. You will lose more leaves from the cutter knives than you will from the impellers. The machine can be set to do absolutely nothing to the alfalfa or can be set aggressively to where it does start to do damage to the crop. The aggressive settings are for heavy, tough grass but these are not used or needed for alfalfa. The impellers do not "beat" the hay. They just carry it through. The different level of aggressiveness is adjusted by the clearance between the rotor and the cover that goes over it. The crop is conditioned by rubbing against itself, not by the so-called "beating" of the impellers. Low clearance equals aggressive conditioning while high clearance here equals no conditioning. It will take you longer to get off the tractor and walk back to the setting lever than it will to adjust this lever. It's an easy job. Plus, it's almost impossible to plug one of these machines. I am very satisfied with my 946 and would not hesitate to buy another impeller machine if I was ever in the market for another one. Mike

Never used one,but my fear is that they would create a wind,or sheet of air in there and the material would ride right up over and not even touch the impellers.

I've been talking over on the implement alley forum about just forgetting the whole conditioning thing altogether and going to a 3pt disc mower and a big tedder. Seems to be the consensus over there that it's the way to go.

(quoted from post at 07:54:43 01/10/12) Never used one,but my fear is that they would create a wind,or sheet of air in there and the material would ride right up over and not even touch the impellers.

I've been talking over on the implement alley forum about just forgetting the whole conditioning thing altogether and going to a 3pt disc mower and a big tedder. Seems to be the consensus over there that it's the way to go.

Click to expand...

You don't even see conditioners here...Everyone has a drum or disc mower, tedder, and rake.........

A guy I used to work for did a lot of grass hay, and did a side by side comparison of rollers VS. an impeller on timothy and brome, was using New Holland swather heads on a versatile and a NH bi-directional. He tracked when he cut, and had both tractors on the same field at the same time, and cut alternating strips with them. He saw a consistant 6 hours faster dry-down with the impeller. He does not seem to have a problem with the flails wearing out either.

I have seen the 946 cut mixed hay as well as alfalfa without much issue. Like stated, if set right, leave loss is minimal and dry down time is knocked down by a few hours. The guy I worked for square baled his which was a timothy Orchard mix and his quality improved a lot. Customers couldn't get enough of it. He now swears by the impeller design and will not go back to rolls. Changing out impellers has still got to cost less than new urethane rolls now a days.

What if you run sticks or hedge pieces thru it?

I've been using a dis-co for about 15 years, and no problems with rolls. You can cut anything with it. They don't recommend the impeller over the rolls on alfalfa, but the impeller will cut alfalfa as well and not really hurt it any, but it doesn't crush the stem as often as the rolls and therefore makes the drying time a few hours longer on the impeller machines, but not a significant time difference. They also say leaf loss is more, but a friend has been using an impeller machine on alfalfa for years and is happy with it. Either way, the conditioning is well worth the cost, especially in a wet year.

When I bought my 946 I asked how the impeller system took "shrapnel" through. The salesman then is a friend of mine and he said he knew of a fellow that ran a set of bed springs through his machine and it did no damage to the machine. He didn't know the springs were there until he heard the noise. Made a lot of that but very little or no damage to the machine. Mike

I cut just over 4500 acres per year with a front mount and rear mount Kuhn outfit taking 20 foot with both mowers.We have probably the heaviest crops of wet grass in the world and would not use anything else only the flail conditioner.We mow at 9-10 miles per hour and try to do about 130 acres per day .We seldom ever have to replace any tines and over the last 7 years have only had bed trouble once and it was not gears(it was a crack) We use the mowers for two seasons then change and they go on to mow many more acres. For cutting whole crop we just open up the conditioner hood with little grain loss.
Sam