JD mulching kits, are they worth the bucks?

[Dashe]

I am using the mulching kit on my 54" deck for mulching the leaves for the first time this year. I have taken three passes so far and have been keeping up as the leaves fall. I mowed/mulched last Friday and on Saturday all the remaining leaves fell. I have found that the mulching kit works very well for the most part. Where the leaves are really thick, you will see some chippings. My plan is to mulch one or possibly two more times and then use my sweeper to clean whatever remains. Far better than last year with hundreds of trips to the woods to dump my sweeper. If I get more than one to two loads in the sweeper, I will be surprised and they will be all mulched up and ready for the garden. I plan on taking the mulching kit off during the winter and put the regular blades with side discharge for the spring. I think next to my #10 cart, the mulcher is the best accessory that I have for my tractor.

 

[TractrNoob]

Why would you want to take the mulch kit off?? I understand you'll probably need to mow every 4-5 days in the spring, but you'll get a nicer cut with smaller clippings. Just sayin'...

 

[Dashe]

You may be right. To be honest, I have not mowed with this tractor without the mulch kit. I want to see how it mows without the kit for a few times in the spring. It takes all of an half hour to switch back to the mulching kit. The spring is the best time because the grass is longer and less dust.

 

[Dashe]

Mulching update. This Saturday, I blew the leaves out of the flower beds, off the driveway and sidewalks etc. In some areas the leaves were 2 feet thick. I then mulched up the leaves on the lawn. In some areas of the lawn, the leaves were pileing up over the deck but the mower kept grinding up the leaves. I then used the sweeper to sweep up the clippings. I picked up around 10 loads of chippings instead of over a hundred loads to the back woods. Boy was the load of chipping heavy! Cleaning the leaves off my lawn was normally a multi week project that I got done in one day. Of course I have mulched the leaves and mowed the lawn for the past three weeks.

 

[EE_Bota]

On my cheapo LA145 with 48" deck, the JD mulching adapter included is just a molded plastic blanking plate that has two bungee cords with hooks to hold it in place. It's well made: rounded to the deck shape, fits above and inside the deck's flared bottom, has heavy duty rubber bungees and mounting hardware.

I just used this last week on 1/2 acre yard and noticed that the grass and leaves were mulched up into a fine particle size. It does take a couple of slow passes to get full mulching accomplished, and the deck needs to be down low at around 2" so the leaves and grass don't escape the deck before being chopped. However, this simple feature along with the combo JD blades work very well on my leaves. The only places I rake leaves is out of flower beds and tight spots where I can't go with the mower. My wife even commented on how nice our yard looked when I finished.:thumbsup:

My plate is identical to your description. But I don't lower my deck, I keep it at 3.5" and reverse my mowing direction so the escapees will get hit eventually. Then I put on my bags and hit the places where I want a bit less leaf bits. Also, I use the Gator blades. This has all worked very well for me. Most of the leaves will seemingly evaporate, so the bagger passes go really quickly and the yard looks just like someone raked every leaf. Often, I hook my little trailer behind too so the first time I empty the bags, I empty them into the trailer, and the second time I go to the leaf pile and empty the bags and then the trailer.

I know it sounds like a lot of fuss, but it really is very easy, and does a great job, and it far less work than I used to do. I used to rake and blow them all.

 

[EE_Bota]

Why would you want to take the mulch kit off?? I understand you'll probably need to mow every 4-5 days in the spring, but you'll get a nicer cut with smaller clippings. Just sayin'...

I find that with my mulch plate on, the blades will not stand the grass up as well for a good cut. But with the mulcher plate off, the air flow helps stand the grass up for a much nicer cut.

 

[Dashe]

Next spring, I would like to experment with my regular blades without the mulch kit and I would like to try the gator G6 mulching blades without the mulching kit and the G6 blades with the mulching kit. Just for fun...

 

[fishrman]

Just read all these posts as I just got a new 390 with the mulching kit. This kit is made so that you can engage and disengage the chute closer. My bride had been using the new machine and wasn't happy with the way it was leaving strips of grass that were not mowed. I told her that I wanted to see if I could figure it out so I wrestled the machine away from her long enough to determine she was just mowing too fast! I have a 48 inch deck but it looked much better after I mowed than when she was mowing. I was ready to take it back with the way it was looking but will probably stick with it now that I have figured it out a little better. Still doesn't cut as good as my old 425 though!

 

[beenthere]

Not much can beat the old 425, 445, and 455 mowing with the decks made for them. When the X's came out and a new style deck, the mowing quality went down hill. IMO

Gave up mowing with my X485 and went back to a 455 and 425 with 54" decks.. back to fine mowing again.

 

[bob3275]

I bought a new X590 about 5 months ago. John Deere was running a "special" on the price if you got the mulch kit so I got it. The deal must have been so popular that they were out of them for about 6 weeks. I also have an X530 now for about 4 years. The cut quality between the two is entirely different. The X530 cut quality is excellent but the cut quality on the X590 WITH the mulch kit is not even close to being as good as it is on the X530. This is with running it in full mulching mode or opening the "door" and side discharging. Over the last few months I have spent countless hours trying to figure out why there was such a big difference. Both mower decks were setup exactly the same with regard to leveling side to side and the same measurement of "difference" between the front and back of the blade tips was identical. What I would see with the X590 was quite simply a fair amount of grass that appeared to have been never touched by the blades, right next to grass the that was actually cut off half decent. I tried to convince myself over and over that it wasn't that bad and that I was over-reacting. I mowed part of my lawn yesterday with the X590 and I thought it looked awful..........trust me everything was right including perfectly sharp blades, etc. I had a flat strip of lawn left about 50 feet by 250 feet. I mowed 4 passes with the X590, and then 4 passes with the X530. There was a BIG DIFFERENCE in the cut quality.............had my wife come out and look at it and she noticed it right away without being "coached". Basically, I had had enough of this. I mow 9 other properties and my standards have always been high. I took the mulch kit totally off, put on standard blades and the mower cut perfectly, just like my X530. I have several ideas why the cut is not good with the mulch kit but the bottom line is that I will NEVER put it back on again. Glad to discuss my findings with anyone interested.