ground driven mower/sickle bar

Ground drive sickles are not fun to start with, & you would need it out front so there are no wheel tracks - then would be best to have rear wheel steer - sickles don't take much side to side motion (steering the tractor) - or mount it on the back & drive in reverse. You'd have to take an old ground driven, chop it up & get it mounted in front of your tractor, with linkage to drive it off a wheel - could be a idler wheel just for that purpose but would need to transfer, what, 5-10 hp depending on bar length & speed?

How much hp does your tractor generate? Driving the sickle will take some pull.

Hope you don't plug into the regular grid, or it all seems pointless - the grid makes plenty of pollution, & is not very efficient. One of my pet peeves, those who promote 'pollution free' but are only plugging into the conventional wall.... Off my soapbox now. :) Sounds like an interesting project.

--->Paul

Windrowers, side mounted sickle mowers, and pull behind sickle mowers all cut to the side of the tractor path because when the crop is run over by the tractor there's nothing in the sickle to pick it back up and lots of it stands up in a few days to make the mowing look needed again. There's suction in the rotary mower with tilted blade ends to lift the smashed grass back up.

When avoiding petroleum fuel, it might be good to use corn and beef fuel and get a gaggle of teens to run hand sickles or sythes (like the grim reaper is often pictured carrying). A good sythe properly sharpened (its worth carrying an oval stone in your back pocket) slices, doesn't chop and builds muscle and character. Try not to use those with a steel snath, that steel is a lot heavier than a wooden snath. For weeds go for a short blade, not the long blade use for mowing grain crops.

Gerald J.

• mower

I'd say what you want is a rotary mower like a Bush Hog.

But to each his own I guess. Sickle would be the only way to go, I suppose you could modify one to put the bar in front rather than to the side. I assume you have some kind of off-the-grid-generator.