New Mower Help Needed!

[gadawg31]

Hello all,

I have been reading all the posts on which mowers are the best, but I was not able to have the following question answered: What mower is best suited for tall fescue grass? I believe that is what it is called. It is tall, with the top of the stalk being in the shape of a "v" and has those black seeds/flower type crap, that gets all over you when you walk thru it. Sorry trying describe as best as possible. All I know is that it seems to be taking over my lawn, which used to be nice centepede, but now you look at it and it looks like a hay field. What ever grass it is, it is very hard to cut. Several passes with my old mower (craftsman LT2000). Anyone have some suggestions for the best mower for the project? Please keep in mind, I am not made of money, so those commercial Z-turn mowers are not in my range. Thanks.

JD

 

[Paulz2821]

Have you tried sharpening your blade or a new one? What about cutting more frequently? That's all we have in NC and I have never had any problems cutting fescue. Mower selection would also need to know the lot size.

 

[gadawg31]

I tried sharpening, new blades, high performance gator blades, mulching, side discharge, but still get the half cut stalks. I am cutting approximately 1 1/2 acres, primarily flat. Some small mounds.
Thanks

JD

 

[motoman]

I tried sharpening, new blades, high performance gator blades, mulching, side discharge, but still get the half cut stalks. I am cutting approximately 1 1/2 acres, primarily flat. Some small mounds.
Thanks

JD

Well I only have experience with my Craftsman 24 HP Intek 48" deck on 1-1/2 acres. When the tractor is running after blowing up and repair I go slow and can mow quite tall weeds 10" to 12." Very little is missed in a single pass, but I mean "slow" as the tractor is really laboring. This is with the "lift blades" into a 3 bagger system.

 

[possum]

If the whole lawn is of these kinds of grasses the cut seems to be better. But clumps of it scattered seems to give a poor looking cut. The grass seems to wind into the blades, preventing a clean cut, they seem to lay down and go under the blades as well springing back up as you go over them. Its not as bad as trying to mow quack grass but bad enough if you have a coarse kind of springy clumpy grass. High lift blades help alot, mowing low helps some, keeping your deck belt new helps some as well. My old jd 111 just failed to cut the stuff late in the season without two or three passes. My newer tractor does much better but still has the pressed down effect late in the season on single passes. This grass is common here in reseeded pastures and CRP and gets scattered into the yards in town by road traffick as well as wild animals and birds. Farmers with $ 50000 double sickle swathers fail to leave a real clean cut in hayfields with this grass so trying to get it to look clean scattered over a lawn is just plain hard to do with a lawnmower.

 

[Lawnranger]

We have the same problem here and I found that if I raise the deck all the way up and cut at that length then in a day or so lower the deck down a couple of notches and mow again I can get that clean looking lawn. The problem is that the tall grass just folds under the deck and the blade never touches it when it is laying down. Sharp blades are a must and high-lift blades work even better.