You have a lot on your plate. Managing your projects, whether they’re around your property or for a commercial operation, can be difficult.
Staying on top of things is hard enough without having to worry about the reliability of the tools you use. You need equipment that lightens your load and works as hard as you do.
For many people in this situation, a John Deere sub-compact utility tractor can be a versatile, reliable solution.
Would this be a good option for you?
At RDO Equipment Co., we sell hundreds of compact utility tractors every year, many are sub-compact models. To help you learn more about these machines and decide whether one would be a good fit for your business, I’ve outlined eight of the most common categories of tasks you can do with a sub-compact utility tractor, starting with what a sub-compact tractor is.
What Is Considered a Sub-Compact Utility Tractor?
Let’s start this conversation by briefly defining which models we’re talking about.
John Deere makes great lawn and land equipment, and their compact utility lineup is relatively large; they manufacture more than 20 compact utility tractor models.
The cutoff between sub-compact and compact tractors occurs at 30 horsepower, making the 2032R the first true compact utility model.
Every model below this, in the sub-compact lineup, has a smaller frame and offers under 30 horsepower.
These are the John Deere sub-compact utility tractors in 2025:
- 1025E
- 1025R
- 2025D
- 3025E
- 3025D
As you consider which is best for you, price, capabilities, functionality and features are important to note. Here are many of the tasks you can do with your sub-compact tractor.
1) Digging
Many of the three-point attachments used by the heavier, large-frame compact utility tractors are also made for sub-compact models.
Digging is a common sub-compact tractor application. This includes digging post holes, excavating, removing stumps, digging holes for trees, digging trenches and other landscaping projects.
If you have upcoming or ongoing light demolition, digging or excavating needs, a sub-compact tractor can meet them.
Attachments commonly used for these tasks:
- Post-hole digger (auger)
- Backhoe
- Trencher (3 Series)
2) Material Handling
Material handling is a very common use for a sub-compact utility tractor. While they’re not as powerful as their larger counterparts, sub-compact models like the 2025R and 3025E (even the 1025R) are great machines for material handling.
This is kind of a broad category. What does material handling mean exactly?
Well, it can be any number of things.
Here are some examples of how you might use your sub-compact utility tractor for material handling:
- Loading/unloading, heavy materials (bags of concrete, bags of fertilizer, bags of seeds)
- Storing and retrieving tools, parts or chemicals from storage
- Carrying wood (logs, pickets, etc.)
- Moving landscaping items (soil, mulch, rocks, dirt, pavers)
- Handling home improvement materials (fencing, lumber, drywall, etc.)
- Transporting fuel
- Moving pallets
If you have projects where moving heavy items from one area to another is necessary, consider a sub-compact tractor. Here are some common attachments for material handling tasks:
- Manure fork
- Mounted front blade
- Root grapple
- Pallet fork
- Bucket
- Fork grapple
- Mechanical grapple
- Skid steer carrier
- Rock bucket
3) Tending Hay and Livestock
Another set of tasks I see people using compact tractors for is to manage hay and livestock on small hobby farms. While it’s not as common to do this with the smaller tractors, like the 1025E, it’s more than possible to manage these activities with any sub-compact tractor.
If you need to move feed bags, hay, water tanks and/or shovel/haul animal waste, here are some attachments you can use with a sub-compact tractor:
- Manure spreader
- Manure forks
- Pro finisher
- Tedder
- Bale spear
4) Mowing and Cutting
While having the ability to push, pull, move and haul are all selling points of owning a sub-compact tractor, being able to mow grass and cut brush is also important.
Mowers are one of the most popular attachments we sell for these tractors — we’ve sold more than 500 in the last year.
Tasks in this category that a sub-compact tractor can help you tackle include:
- Trimming hedges, embankments and ditches
- Mowing around vines, trees and trunks
- Clearing brush from trails and overgrown paths
- Cutting along fences and uneven terrain
- Mowing/cutting overgrown areas, mulching materials
Here are some of the compatible attachments you could use for these tasks:
- Flail mower
- Grooming mower
- Material collectors
- Rotary cutter
- Mid-mower
- Landscape rake
- Sickle bar mower (3 Series)
5) Spraying, Seeding and Spreading
A commonly overlooked use case for sub-compact tractors is for efficient land and grass maintenance.
This includes tasks like spreading fertilizer, spraying chemicals and dropping seeds.
There are several attachments you can use for these tasks, and each will easily connect to the hitch of the sub-compact tractor.
Here are the attachments to explore for this category:
- Ground seer
- Mounted sprayer
- Manure spreader
- Broadcast spreader
6) Tillage
This category is somewhat related to digging, but deserves its own callout.
Sub-compact tractors were made to accomplish all of your maintenance tasks, including prepping ground for planting. If you have a garden or small plot you plant each spring, your sub-compact tractor can help you. From the 1025E to the 3025D, tilling, plowing and raking dirt is only an attachment away.
Example tillage attachments:
- Rotary tiller
- Tandem disk harrow
- Power rake
- Pro finisher
- Plow (3 Series)
- One-row cultivator (3 Series)
- Field cultivator (3 Series)
- Middle buster (3 Series)
- Subsoiler (3 Series)
7) Wood Chipping
Wood chipping is another activity you can do with every sub-compact tractor, except the 1023E.
Not commonly thought about, sub-compact tractors are compatible with a woodchipper attachment, allowing you to do light forestry work with these machines.
Simply feed the wood into the hopper and the woodchipper will do the rest, producing shredded wood chippings.
This can be helpful for fire prevention, clearing pathways, creating livestock bedding, adding to compost piles and creating mulch.
8) Snow Removal
If you live in a cold climate (like I do up here in the Midwest), snow removal is frequently on your mind from October to mid-April. For people with long sidewalks and driveways to manage or large areas to clear, having a reliable companion throughout the winter is a must.
A few sub-compact tractor models have a cab (including the 1025R and 2025R), making snow removal even more comfortable.
If snow is something you handle each year (whether that’s pushing, brushing or blowing snow), here are the attachments that will help you:
- Front blade
- Snow push
- Rotary broom
- Heavy-duty snow blower
- Quick hitch snow blower
Is a Sub-Compact Tractor Right For You?
There are a lot of different things you can do with a sub-compact tractor. In fact, many of the things that a person can accomplish with larger, compact utility tractors can be done with sub-compact models.
As you consider which machine best fits your needs, keep in mind that sub-compact utility tractors are great for everything from snow removal, spraying, seeding, and digging to tending livestock and mowing. Most sub-compact tractors can even do wood chipping.
But why would you choose a compact utility tractor instead? Would that make more sense for your specific needs?
Do you have questions for us?
Alex Mitchell
Alex Mitchell is passionate about customers, John Deere machines and RDO Equipment Co. As an Account Manager, Alex enjoys educating potential customers on what John Deere equipment can deliver, and he especially loves showing them they can turn their dreams of owning a Deere into reality.
