My name is Roger Oberhouser. I'm the president and owner of Woodridge
tree farm. We're a wholesale nursery about 200 acres in production. We sell
about 12,000 trees a year to landscapers garden centers and nursery brokers.
I think we've had that Ventrac about 12 years. It's been a great machine, we
put it through the wringer. It's pretty tough... during the summer we'll use
it for at least 30 hours a week on it never really had any major issues with it
Our rows are six-and-a-half feet apart and typically within a row we're
anywhere from five and a half to six feet you know once you get a tree
growing four feet wide on 6 and 1/2 foot rows you're looking at as little as
three, three and a half feet between the branches.
Some guys plant seven, eight
feet rows because maybe they don't have the equipment to go down such a narrow
row as a six and a half foot. It's been a great tool to be able to get into the
trees like especially now when they have the growth- the new growth on them and
without doing any damage at all. I don't know of any other tool that we could use
to get in there and mow like that.
The rear-discharge on the mower allows you to cut heavy grass that a
traditional turf deck would never cut and it lays that grass right under the
machine so you're not kicking it out into the trees it lays it right in the
middle the row then the design the way you have the bars to lift the branches
first that front edge of that mower deck slips right under that branch and lifts
it up now if that mower moves forward cuts the grass and as you pull away this
falls back back where it was it really allows you to get in there and lift the
branches and get in there in virtually no damage even with new tender growth on
it's allowed us to really clean up our fields you know if you have a nice mowed
surface everything's a lot easier that's about the only machine you can go cross
ways that you can weave in and out of young you know material and clean your
fields up you know so your customers don't have to walk through-through weeds
no place in that tree field you probably couldn't get through with that machine
just makes it nicer for your customers
Well inevitably you're going to find a groundhog hole or where you dug a tree
before and you're going to need four-wheel drive I don't think you could
quite manage without it. If you do get it in the hole I won't say it's impossible
to get it stuck but it's a lot easier to get it out.
I like the rear motor. You have the mower deck right in front of you really
excellent control of where you're mowing of course you have power steering which
is very effortless and you have such good control of that mower deck combined
with the visibility that you have you could work really close to your young
trees to clean them up. You can run that machine all day and its really pretty
effortless.
Stump grinder would be great for a Christmas tree drill and if you have a
machine like that that you can maneuver around the field and get it just about
anywhere you could get in tight spots and grind stumps out and would be a
lot easier to replant and your customers wouldn't be tripping over tree stumps
I think any nursery should consider having one of these simply because
there's no-I can't think of any other mower where you can get in have good
control so you don't damage nursery stock you don't damage branches you
don't damage the trunks. You know you really can get in a lot of places and
you have a lot of maneuverability.
I don't know what we'd do without it
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