Mowing Startup Considerations

This time of year, we often see many, many mistakes beginning that will affect your turf for the rest of the season. We would like to take a moment to discuss how mowing plays a critical part in turf health. Getting a great looking turf has three major factors that must all work in conjunction with each other. Water-Fertilization- Mowing. If any of these three are far out of accepted norms, the other two will not mean much! For example, if I never water, how I mow and fertilize mean nothing, the turf is dead. If I over fertilize and burn the turf , it can die or cause vegetative growth that outstrips the roots ability to provide nutrients to the blades, leading to thinning and possibly yellowing of the turf. Finally, if I use my mower to scalp or further distress a lawn, as we'll cover here today, I can also weaken or even kill off my turf!

The number one thing we are seeing is a problem with mowing height. Bluegrass turfs are far and away the most common turf types in Utah . It's mowing height requirements are 2.5-3.5 inches high for it to thicken into a stand that we would consider dense enough to use as lawn. During high heat and drought conditions, the pros may even take their heights up to 4.5 inches to further shade roots and preserve water, with no problems with turf lay over or walkability. So it's with concern that we notice homeowners and even some ill-advised property managers or their grounds crews, cutting turfs to .5-1.75 inch high stands. The idea is to look like the putting green at the local golf course, to play low and fast. Some severe problems exist with this philosophy, however, number one being that golf greens are never made up of bluegrass stands . That's right, greens are done in an entirely different type of grass, groomed with different pieces of equipment than your standard rotary mower and have far, far more precise soil preparations and grading than your site does. Want that look? Kill your turf, bring in an excavation team to properly amend, grade, compact and prep your soil and then go ahead and plant in a bentgrass turf and start looking for an expensive and temperamental reel style mower. There are plenty of golf construction companies that will be happy to take your money assisting you on your path to this patience tester. No? You just really need a healthy looking turf that doesn't require daily care with good color, good thickness, the ability to keep weeds down and your water bill to a dull roar? Read on my friend.

Mowing at the proper height is a key to getting that thick, dense turf established. Mow too short, possibly hit the crown of the plant or maybe all the way to the dirt in high spots (scalping). Mow too long, turf can lay over and begin to matte, blocking out sunlight and maybe even air and water under extreme circumstances. The key is to identify the desired grasses in your turf and mow to the recommended heights using the area of the lawn most prone to the shortest cut and making sure you do not go below the minimum heights for your turf type in that area! Frequency is also a factor. If you allow a lawn to get very long and cut off more than 1/3 of the blade up from the crown, you can stress the turf as it tries to hurriedly replace that vital sun gathering leaf surface. The crown (the rolled stem, if you will) can also elongate as the turf is allowed to grow taller, supporting the longer leaf blade. You come along and cut at your normal mowing height and leave even less leaf surface to support the plant's photosynthesis. So, what SHOULD you do? Mowing as often as necessary to maintain the proper height and not having to cut more than 1/3 of the leaf off in any given mowing. By frequent mowing, you also encourage your lawn to spread and thicken, allowing sunlight to make it to new leaf starts. The exceptions are early thatch/debris pickup and winter prep, covered elsewhere in this site. Ideally, your fertilization and watering schedules should work hand in hand with controlling the speed of top growth to make this a weekly task and not an every two to three day chore. If your lawn is growing at a 2-3 day pace of mowing to stay true to the cutting rules, you need to back down the fertilization and watering (keep an eye for those details here as the year progresses). Commercial grounds managers can do this getting color, density and health out of their turfs with only weekly mowing in most cases, beyond large rain events. If they can, you can too! It's science not magic. Follow the rules and you'll get that quality without all the fight and fuss.

To mulch or bag - This may be one of the most misunderstood aspects by the inexperienced turf keeper. Let's start with what mulching actually is and what it does for your turf. Number one- mulching is not side discharging clippings. Period. No ifs, ands nor buts. Side discharging from your mower is for hay fields, not turf. If you have a "pro" who does this, fire them . Side discharging can leave long clippings on top of turf and can launch rocks or other hidden objects at dangerously high speeds out from your mower deck. You are playing roulette with what it may hit. Property damage and personal injury are the fun possibilities to that game. Are you sure you've paid your liability insurance this month? Mulching requires completely blocked off decks, with air baffles and high lift blades, usually deeper than a normal deck to handle the grass and air flow. The idea is to cut, lift the clippings and hit them a few more thousand times before they drop back to the turf, leaving small, little bits of grass. Why? Grass is the sum of it's parts. Water, nutrients, energy. By returning them to the turf in  small, "bite-sized" pieces, they can be used over and over by the turf. Reducing water needs, fertilization frequency and the man hours it takes to bag a lawn. Mulching mowers need those deep decks and bigger power to cut through thick grass at any kind of forward speed and leave a clean trail behind. They are most often dedicated to doing this task, the reason the decks designed to bag do a poor job at mulching. Real mulching does not lead to thatch buildup or any other kind of damage to your turf. Mulching mowers complete the task in half the time (no stopping to empty your bagger, disposing of clippings, etc.), are healthier for your turf and leave clean, flat cuts when mowing rules are followed. So why bag? Bag when grass is extremely long and cannot be properly mulched or when gathering large loads of dense leaves or other plant material at end of season cleanups. That's it. Adding clippings to the excessive green waste already headed to landfills is a costly mistake for everyone and in this case, is easily changed. Side by side cut quality on turf that has water and fert properly managed is equal, no matter what you THINK you know. Old timers who swear that mulching is not clean are the same ones who practiced the side discharge method. Today's powerful, dedicated mulchers stand up to any bagging system on properly managed turf.

The hidden brown maker - The dull lawn mower blade. My blades still cut, they must not be too dull, right? They cut because of speed, they cut CLEAN because of sharpness. Why care, a cut is a cut, right? Wrong. What happens when a blade of grass is just impact cut rather than sliced cleanly, it frays the tips, just like the split ends that the hair shampoo commercials are always yakking about. But since there is no special shampoo for grass split ends, the grass dies back to where the leaf is whole again, leaving brown little tips on the turf. Do this to a few hundred thousand leaf blades and the entire turf gets a browning hue to it. This is often a source of confusion for many turf managers and they start increasing water, mistakenly thinking the browning is being caused by drying of the entire plant, not just the tips. This can lead to triggering disease and stress in the lawn, as it's being drowned, making the problem grow! All from a set of dull blades on the mower. So how can you tell if your blade is dull and how often should you sharpen? A cursory feel of the blades with the engine OFF, might tell you. They should be sharp, like a knife, not rounded and easy to run your finger along lengthwise. Having a look at individual grass blades will also tell you if it's time to sharpen. Frayed or shredded tips are the dead giveaway. Commercial cutters will dull their blades inside of a week of regular cutting, even shorter if it's wet as that tends to dull blades quicker due to increased friction and resistance. Homeowners may get away with once or twice per season, depending on area cut and moisture levels. The number one thing is to keep them sharp and recognize the symptoms of dull before attempting a "fix" through other means.

That's it for today, though there are still many related areas to cover with mowing. Hopefully, this will give you a good base to begin from and you'll keep an eye out for future articles on watering and fertilizing that work with your mowing program for the big gains without all the fight. Also, keep an eye to our FAQ section for responses on other turf issues, including trimming and edging properly to match your mowing skills .