I 100% agree with those views on both, aside from the slower speed, a flail requires more power and therefore fuel usage too over the equivalent sized topper. If you were to have one machine, the flail is the one to go for as it does most things very well. There is also an 'inbetween', the rotary shredder such as the Major Cyclone that has some benefits of both.

Another excellent summary. I just prefer the look after topping and find a harrow will deal with molehills ( but with extra time/fuel). Keep the vids coming!

In my opinion... A topper is good for 'looks' over function. Once a fortnight, in summer, will have your 'lawn' looking lovely. A mulcher is function over looks. It also is better at preparing virgin land to become 'farm useable'! Toppers can get the tops off in the autumn better than a mulcher too. That layer 'cut' can feed some animals if collected, whilst what remains helps the ground be less susceptible to the dry air over winter. 😊

Seriously? We have been umming and ahhing over both for weeks without a decent UK based video to help us decide, then I buy a flail last night about the same time you pressed publish on this. Luckily, I think it'll work for us, as our site was once an army camp so its rough, and occasionally we come across a lump of concrete sticking up through the surface. It's a 5' Orsi, so it should also be good for de-coking our 1959 Massey 35 by giving her a good work out!

A flail can really be dam slow though, and I'm not certain but it needs a bit more oomph to operate it. I use a 1.5m Winton flail on my Kubota l2850 which is 32hp and i feel like it is pushing the old girls limits a bit.

i was watching some of your older videos on TM and was looking into making a dividend portfolio and was wondering what sites you use?

One advantage of the topper over the flail is that replacing the blades is much cheaper and the wider the flail is, the more expensive it gets.

Excellent side-by-side comparison video! Love the high drone shots seeing the lovely pattern from above! Do you think the flail uses more fuel because it's doing more work? I gather you can get different cutters for the flail, can't you?

Have you had a new tractor... Love your vids

Where the grapes are, it no longer shows us what happened to them