Unmowable Grass!

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
To everyone saying to use a drum mower, I had a JF drum mower once that couldn't get through a delayed heavy cut. Had to mow it the other way across the field.

We ran Claas WM250's for 20+ years. They would cut anything and leave a beautiful job. I'd be very comfortable of one felling that field in the OP. Disc mowers we run now are very poor in comparison
 

Muck Spreader

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Limousin
Has he got the end blades on?🤐

Maybe sharpen them with an angle grinder if they are on there?
It's not the cutting that appears to be the problem, It's once it's cut it just wraps around the top hat, it was also doing it on the inside one, but less so. I did attempt this field first but only got about 100m before it clogged. So left it and cut 2 more similarly heavy fields totalling about 13 acres and then came back to this a couple of days later and dryer, but no better.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
Has the end top hat smooth sides or has it a couple of vertical angle irons welded to it? The top hat and turtle design is especially important on straight mowers to ensure that the crop flows consistently off the back of the cutterbar. I strongly suspect that the top hat on that mower is not pushing the cut grass aggressively enough backwards and it therefore blocks and wraps. If it blocks on any of the other disc turtles it is almost certainly because the crop isn't propelled back off the cutterbar. To aid crop flow, many mowers have steel 'flights' on top, between the knife and the disc axle, which lift the crop and reduce the likelihood of crop stalling and blocking the cutterbar.

The other possibility is that the top hat grabs the crop before its is cut off at its base. If so, try cutting across the lay rather than towards [opposite] to the lie of the grass.

The better designed mower-conditioners have both flights on the turtles and the friction irons up the top hat to propel the crop backwards plus the conditioner located optimally, slightly behind the cutterbar so that the flails do not grab a laid crop, or any crop, before it has been cut at the base.
 
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We had the same problem a couple of years ago with a Lely Splendimo, grass getting wrapped around the outer top hat, on what was not a brilliant crop of grass (It had been partly grazed). It would cut for a hundred yards or so then start screaming. Lift the skirt up and the grass was wrapped around the top hat. Strangely it did not do that in the areas of the field where the grass crop was heavier. Originally we thought it might be the belts needed tightening, but that made no difference. We ended up taking the top hat off, to see if it made any difference. It worked okay after that, but that may also have been because we dropped a gear down on the splitter, going that bit more slowly for fear of doing any damage to the mowing machine
 
We had the same problem a couple of years ago with a Lely Splendimo, grass getting wrapped around the outer top hat, on what was not a brilliant crop of grass (It had been partly grazed). It would cut for a hundred yards or so then start screaming. Lift the skirt up and the grass was wrapped around the top hat. Strangely it did not do that in the areas of the field where the grass crop was heavier. Originally we thought it might be the belts needed tightening, but that made no difference. We ended up taking the top hat off, to see if it made any difference. It worked okay after that, but that may also have been because we dropped a gear down on the splitter, going that bit more slowly for fear of doing any damage to the mowing machine
I have a JD 1365 but I mow for a neighbour using their Lely Splendimo, they can be a fickle machine.
 

Bobthebuilder

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
northumberland
It's not the cutting that appears to be the problem, It's once it's cut it just wraps around the top hat, it was also doing it on the inside one, but less so. I did attempt this field first but only got about 100m before it clogged. So left it and cut 2 more similarly heavy fields totalling about 13 acres and then came back to this a couple of days later and dryer, but no better.
had similar problem cutting margins with our lely splendimo, turned out the bearing was on its way out on conditioner
 

Muck Spreader

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Limousin
Has the end top hat smooth sides or has it a couple of vertical angle irons welded to it? The top hat and turtle design is especially important on straight mowers to ensure that the crop flows consistently off the back of the cutterbar. I strongly suspect that the top hat on that mower is not pushing the cut grass aggressively enough backwards and it therefore blocks and wraps. If it blocks on any of the other disc turtles it is almost certainly because the crop isn't propelled back off the cutterbar. To aid crop flow, many mowers have steel 'flights' on top, between the knife and the disc axle, which lift the crop and reduce the likelihood of crop stalling and blocking the cutterbar.

The other possibility is that the top hat grabs the crop before its is cut off at its base. If so, try cutting across the lay rather than towards [opposite] to the lie of the grass.

The better designed mower-conditioners have both flights on the turtles and the friction irons up the top hat to propel the crop backwards plus the conditioner located optimally, slightly behind the cutterbar so that the flails do not grab a laid crop, or any crop, before it has been cut at the base.

It's a Kuhn GMD602 which we have had for 10 years without a ever encountering this problem before.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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