Hi
Fed up with waiting for tractors to plough/rotavate
Planning to buy a mini tractor for my 5acre farm in Hassan dist Hassan taluk karnataka
I have coconut with arecanut in between, so large tractors damaging plants
Soil become stone hard when dry so need higher HP TRACTORS
There are no mini tractors available for rent in our village.
So planning for a mini tractor
I enquired few brands
Kubota Neostar 2741S -27 hp,PTO 19.8hp, hydraulic lift 750 price 6.5 lacs
Mahindra jive 305DI 30 hp,25 hp pto!lift 750, 6 lacs
Sonalika tiger GT28(GT 30 NOT available in Hassan),28 hp,24hp pto,600kg lift, 6lacs
Sonalika baagban 30 DI 30hp,25hp pto,lift 1000kg,5.4lacs
VST MT932 30hp,25hp pto,lift 1200,5.5 lac
Every dealer claims they have best service and spares are readily available
Kindly help me decide
Thank you all lovely ppl
I have a Kubota B2420 24hp 4 wheel drive for many years now and can comment on that alone. I would think other Kubota models should be somewhat similar.
We use this tractor to manage 5 acre vegetable farm using a rotavator only. With 4wd, this 24wd is equivalent to 30hp 2wd, but I would not recommend this for ploughing or cultivator for primary tillage. We only rotavate for land preparation.
The tractor has been a reliable workhorse of good quality. We had to change some parts a few times, mainly the arms that connect the tractor and rotavator. The parts are slightly more expensive, just as the tractors are.
Dealer and service network is limited in Telangana but we did not have any major issues since the mechanic travels to farm location for servicing and repairs, and spares availability wasn’t a problem.
I think @Sri has a VST/Mitsubishi in Karnataka and may have info to share.
Also, this sounds very familiar 
No tractors available when soil is good to plough, soil too hard when tractors become available.
Rinse, repeat.
2 posts were split to a new topic: Soil improvement, organic matter, no till ideas
hi again, use BCS walk behind tractor. you could get that in 2.5L or less or more depending on the configuration. its a solid machine.
Is the Sonalika Tiger, Tiger-Electric please? I suggest you go for Electric tractor.
https://www.sonalika.com/tractor/tiger-electric
Vinod Kumar
Thrissur, Kerala
Soil management, no till related discussion has been moved to its own topic here:
Hello @kvinodkumar
With your tech bent of mind, do you know if electric tractors do the job, i.e., meet the power requirements for the bulky farm activities? Any view on the economics?
Namaste Sir.
Shubha Deepavali greetings and prayers for all mangala to embrace you and your loved ones. We are entering a very difficult time, with amavasya today + solar eclipse, negatively affecting all things even in the Motherland.
I do not have specific knowledge re: electric tractors; all my experience with farm machinery, including shredder.chippers has been with gasoline engines. I am told that some people here have installed solar panels on their tractors, but hesitate to express my opinions since I am not an electrical engineer but a farmer and plant biologist.
I do not feel very confident re: tillage with electric machines, since be they solar or running on recharging, the energy requirements for tillage seem rather high to me, and not useful for your purposes.
If your soil is dry and hard NOW, what specifically do you hope to accomplish by any tillage? I do have a strong grounding in the nutrient uptake by roots in the top 6 inches as well as deeper soil layers where oxygen is limiting and so is root activity. You may refer tot he research of my respected teacher, Prof, James Richards on ‘hydraulic lifting’ by some species.
Kindly tell me your per tree yield of ripe coconuts, from your best and worst trees, as well as a clear idea of what you wish to accomplish by tillage: is it for a better nutrient management or water uptake?
I was referred to the No Till Section by a MS. Khanna, but do not know if she understood in depth my response to you. It is not about No/Low till, but about what exactly your goals are, and the relative costs associated with them. What is the PAYBACK period on your investment on any actions? Pardon me for intruding on your privacy, but the farm, like many small business, suffer fro either over or under capitalization, affecting returns to the owner. I have also taught small business classes with reference to addition of value to rural and agricultural assets in Upstate NY.
Have you ever considered visiting Hubbali/Dharwad and speaking with the gentleman who is producing rotary ploughs and ask him if he can custom-make you a small single, or double pough, just like the BCS Power Tiller model or the Grillo, both being equivalent? Shaktiman in Gujarat also has ood rotary ploughs but are much more complicated, b ut they might be willing to make you a single or double set of such for your operation. It will bring them goodwill and also open up possibilities for them from smaller farmers like you.
What is the situation re: ploughing by bullocks in your area? Are there useful designs of the moldboard plough common, in addition to the harness equipment for such ploughs. Any tillage is very very heavy duty for bullocks, and scratching the soil surface for 204 inches, as we do in Bengal with our small cattle makes no sense to me. I have extensive experience preparing seedbeds on the cracking clays of Bengal. In my time, late 60 and 70s, we used bamboo mallets to manually reduce clods one by one to create seedbeds for smaller, more lucrative seeds like coriander, after the desi plough left its apologies of clods all over. I remember with horror and despair those times in Bengal where doing anything useful was next to impossible. fortunately, you are in Karnataka. Just out of curiosity, I was told some years back that KT was tying up with Wageningen University of the Netherlands for a joint approach in KT farms. Has anything come of that?
Please, first clearly sum up your immediate and longer term goals regarding tillage and comprehensive orchard care of your coconut/areca plantation.
It is like writing a clear BUSINESS PLAN, along with a 5 year cash flow chart, detailing to the investor, you, a clear idea of what you are trying to accomplish. The farm is primarily a bisiness, and technological fixes are not always the solution. I live in a land of technology fixes for every farm issue, but I need to respect my Indian sense of questioning any given wisdom!
Please sit down with your accountant and carefully go over the schedule of expenditures and returns, and use that second set of heads to help you plan.
Please let me know, if you can, the availability of manual labor, and the possibilty of their wielding pickaxes during your rains, to create the nutrient/irrigation circles around your favored coconut palms. This is not low or no till, but using soil disturbance to greatest effect.
What else is growing on the orchard floor, incluing weedy species? It is important to learn what really is going on, especially how tillage will affect moisture loss/gain from the actual orchard floor. have yu keasured by deeper soil probes, e.g. neutron probes, the actual moisture situation in your field? How much more water loss would tillage affect, and the role of cover crops, plus very focused methods of treating the problems palm by palm.
I am not going to advise you to buy any machinery. I see so many farmers in Haryana etc. who simply do not understand tillage with the systems they have and then wonder why. I am not saying that y9u do not know what is going on with your land.
Please pardon my abundant caution. Why will any of the dealers in question arrange a demonstration inside your orchard, after getting a good idea of the soil water situation and also what you hope to accomplish by buying their equipment?
Sincerely
Vamadeva Bhattacharya
Sonalika electric tractor is11hp tractors,not available in Hassan
Does not suit my requirement
As of now very costly 6lac +
It is a very good idea to be followed to minimize the expenses in farm practices. it is expected to display by farm photos and video of this practices
Ratilal Sudani,
Director,
Bhoojalshree Geotech Consultant-Gujarat HO-Pune, Maharashtra)
Services for groundwater Exploration, Development and Management.
Anand, Gujarat Contact: 9978115968, 9427382368
Pune : Dr. Suresh Pawar, 98226 45787
Sir
5acers why don’t you try tiller is best in small place also
It’s my vew
Tillers are not helpful
Soil becomes very hard just 2-3 days of sun
Update about response from companies and dealers
Kubota dealer called several times about date of purchase
Mahindra dealer called once
Sonalika dealer trying to sell me something I don’t want(sonalika GT 26) ,company website no reply no email reply too( nearly 20 days)
VST dealer has stopped selling vst products and company has not updated its website also their toll free number,no one receives phone no reply to email nearly 15 days
You may know this but it is worth mentioning to keep expectations from any machine realistic.
No tiller or tractor of any available power can work through soil that is not at the right level of moisture - not more, not less.
I would recommend demos of the machines. Youtube videos are often made in best possible soil conditions and in pre-prepared fields. As an example, you will find many videos of mini tractors working nicely with a cultivator and even a plough, but from experience, this is hard to accomplish in real world.
Theres a nearby govt farm using VST and a neighbour using kubota
Usually one day before rainjets are used
Mahindra and sonalika ready for demo
Sorry for late update
I purchased Sonalika BAGHBAAN 4wd 30 hp in February
5 Tyne plough 22k(could have bargained for much less)
Tractor costed 5.25 lakhs including insurance,rto, etc etc
Down payment was 65k and rest was loan from Sundaram finance( I had some unforeseen expenses,my mother was sick)
My cibil score dropped and went for not so good Sundaram finance.I could have waited a month or so,but in my previous experience, if I postpone a thing,it will never be done
Advantages of having a tractor
My land which used to look like weed garden,now looks good
No need to wait indefinitely for tractors
Really good service-impressive I must say
Tractor working smoothly
Cons
Not yet encountered any problems
Congratulations, that seems a good choice.
Good power among minitractors and this model has proven for a while. Sounds like you managed to get a good price too.
Did you get a rotavator too?
No chandra sir
Ran out of. Money😁