Tractor Implements You Will Use vs the Ones That Rust in the Weeds

From Sam Trudou's video29 September 2026

A package price makes the extras read as free, and years later one sits in the fence row with grass grown through its tines. Here are five checks off one sheet that tie every implement to a job, and when to walk away.

This is for you if you have one to ten acres, the band the book is written for and labels an assumption, and a quote with a package price on it. The rake in that fence row was not a bad tool. It was bought on demo day, against a job nobody had written down.

What you are up against is the package number that comes in under the tags added up, so the extras read as free. They are not free: you pay on demo day, and again every year they sit in the weeds. Kubota, Deere, Mahindra, LS and TYM are examples here, never a team.

One sheet settles it: eight rows, one per job, and seven columns, among them hitch category, PTO yes or no, used in year one, and in the dealer package. The last column is the honest one: will it rust in the fence row?

Check 1. One row per job

Write the job number from your eight-job list in the first column of every implement row, and strike any row that cannot get one.

Eight is the book's working length for that list, and the book labels it an assumption. An implement with no job number is a purchase looking for a reason, and it comes off.

Then read two columns together. Yes in the package column and no in the year-one column is the exact tool that will rust. That is not a prediction; it is the definition. Ask for it out, and the price adjusted. One implement per job. Everything else waits a year and earns its way on with a written quote.

Check 2. Copy the hitch words

Copy the hitch category off the printed specification page for the exact machine, word for word, in your own handwriting.

The category is what the implement dealer needs to hear. It is set out in ANSI/ASABE AD730, a published standard for the rear three-point linkage, not a marketing word.

Two real sheets do not use the same two words. Kubota's detailed specification sheet for the BX23S prints SAE Category 1. The John Deere commercial price page for the 1025R, dated November 4, 2022, prints Limited Category 1, 3-Pt. Hitch.

Limited is not a different pin standard. The links and pins still meet Category 1, so a Category 1 implement mates to those arms. What is limited is height: a low subcompact may not raise every Category 1 implement to its working height. Deere's current 1025R page still prints it that way, as of September 2026.

Two questions, in this order:

What size are the pins on these arms?
Will this tractor lift this implement high enough to do its job?

A quick hitch answers neither one. If you hear that it is a Cat 1 and everything fits, ask for the printed page. No printed page, no hitch category, and you are not ready to order an implement. The category is copied, never remembered.

Rear-view drawing of a tractor's three-point hitch, with the top link, the two lift arms and the two lower links labeled, the PTO shaft in the middle, and a note that reads category: copy from the spec sheet. — The category is copied, never remembered. Book 1, fig. ch8-1

Check 3. Two capacities, not one

Write both lift figures on the implement row: the one at the lift points, and the one measured 24 inches behind them.

The same Kubota sheet prints two: 1,213 pounds at the lift points and 680 pounds at 24 inches behind them. Same tractor, same hitch, 533 pounds apart, and the only thing that changed is where the weight hangs. Two feet back costs that machine about forty-four percent of what its own sheet promises.

The 550 pounds printed a few rows down is maximum tongue weight for towing, not a lift figure. Most implements do not sit at the lift points anyway; a rotary cutter's deck and gearbox hang behind them. I would write the far number. The manual and the capacity plate govern what you actually lift, not this page.

Check 4. Size to the PTO

Take the PTO horsepower line off the current sheet for the model year on the lot, and hand that number to the implement dealer.

You have two mowing problems and you think you have one. The half acre by the house has to look like a lawn. The three acres behind the barn get knocked down twice a year so they do not turn into woods.

Two tools. A mid-mount deck cuts low and level; a rotary cutter hangs behind, runs off the rear PTO, and leaves no lawn finish. One 2026 dealer listing describes its AutoConnect mid-mower deck as one that can be installed or removed in under 5 minutes.

Drawing of two compact tractors: one with a mid-mount mower deck slung under its belly, the other pulling a three-point rotary cutter behind it, with a fence and a barn in the background. — A mid-mount deck cuts low and level; a rotary cutter hangs behind. Book 1, fig. ch8-2

The horsepower that reaches the PTO is not the horsepower on the hood:

Kubota's BX23S sheet: 21.6 gross engine horsepower, 17.7 PTO horsepower.
Deere's price page dated November 4, 2022: 22.4 engine, 14.5 PTO.
Deere's current 1025R page, as of September 2026: 24 horsepower under SAE J1995, a rated PTO of 18.

Verify at the dealer and on the plate. Then buy the one that matches the job you do most, and let the second earn its way on. If both mowing columns on your sheet come back yes, you have two mowing jobs, not one, and that is a different question.

Check 5. A price and a date on every line

Make the dealer write the quoted price and today's date beside the cutter, the blade and the rake, in pen, on your sheet.

A quick hitch lets you back up to an implement and connect without crawling in wet grass pushing pins, and it is not included. On that same Deere sheet, the iMatch Quick Hitch Category 1 is option 4060 at $366.00 factory; the field version, LVB25976, is $456.50.

The 260B factory installed backhoe with bucket lists at $8,652.00, against a base tractor at $18,035.00: one attachment, close to half the machine. The thumb that makes it useful for rock and brush is another $1,683.00. That is a contract list, four model years stale, and not your quote.

Kubota's sheet names a B8160 ballast box, a BL2789 51 in. rear snowblower and K9184 pallet forks, and prints no price on any of them. The dealer has those numbers; make him write them down.

Then the honest blank. The book has no sourced price anywhere for a rotary cutter, a box blade or a landscape rake. They are the most common first implements on an acreage, and no public dated sheet holds a price for them. So the dealer's number, in pen, with the date, is the one you will actually pay.

While the pen is out, ask which bucket system the loader carries. If it comes pin-on and you planned on quick-attach, the forks you planned around do not fit.