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I have some 12" plus grass that needs mowed. I have a MTD mower and the deck has two blades. Can I remove one blade to make mowing less taxing on my mower without causing harm to my machine? If so, should I remove the left blade, or the right blade (the discharge side)?
Thank you!

were you drunk when this idea came to you lol.

answer is no, cut with it on highest setting and take it very slow is all you can do

at 12" you might be better with a weed wacker to knock most of it down to at least 5"-6" before you try to cut it

You definitely want both blades on. Mowers should NEVER be run without the correct and properly balanced place on the spindle/shaft. You should have no problem tackling this problem at the highest cut height and taking it slow. Make sure that your blades are sharp, your tires are properly inflated, and your mower is running at full RPM. Most of the time, even with $10,000 commercial machines and taking it slow, a second or third pass is needed. While it is most taking on the power of the engine, a 2-1 or high lift blade will do the most good for this type of cutting because you want to get those clippings out from under the deck so that the uncut, tall grass can be cut with each subsequent pass. Good Luck!!

Ditto on the above 2.

Must have one with a weak engine and MTDs that are under powered. My 42" Yard Machines walks right through 12" at 3/4 full forward speed. But I do half lap anything higher like the waist high sage grass here and slow down to about 1/3 forward speed just to give the deck time to clear the grass load.

If you having cutting full deck width just start cutting using only half of the deck width. Something I do when I am double mulching my grass, again to allow the grass load to clear the deck.

I do the half width swipe or mow 1/2 inch higher and then mow at normal depth. The double cut seems to have less clippings laying on the lawn to turn brown and look like crap. And super sharp blades when really needed, like this week.

FWIW currently I am trying to catch up on the mowing I have not done for the past 5 months while I was ill.
The kangaroo grass is 5' yes foot tall the tussock grass is 4' tall and the reeds have stalks better than 1/2" thick
I am mowing them with a 32" 8Hp ride on without any problems .
The bits that have been knocked down are getting remowed with a 42" 16Hp mower
You just have to mow SLOW and pull the dischearge chute up out of the way so the deck does not choke.