What Side to Discharge Grass Clippings?

[glennmac]

When you mow with a side discharge mower, you can either discharge the cut clippings into the grass you've already mowed or into the grass you've yet to mow. What's best?

Surely there is an established answer to this, but I don't know it. I can make arguments both ways and end up in cerebral gridlock. If I discharge clippings into the uncut grass, I may be expending energy cutting the discharged clippings and therefore get a poorer cut on the uncut grass. That's bad. But maybe it's good if the discharged clippings are long (or wet or both) and tend to mat if discharged onto the already-cut grass. Discharging them into the uncut grass lets you recut them again to lessen the matting. Maybe that's better. Maybe there's lots of things I'm not even thinking about.

Would someone who knows the correct answer please tell us.

 

[Sailorcrew]

I prefer to discharge to the side alredy mown. I find that if my grass is just a little too high and I discharge on the unmown side, then I have a real pile of clippings that just sit on top of the lawn. They turn brown and never fully disintergrate and sometimes actually kill the grass below by depriving it of sunlight. By discharging on the mown side, I can look and determine if another run is necessary to redistribute the clippings. That said, I don't really want to mow my lawn twice each time but it does seem to leave a lighter trail of clippings. David

 

[GrantMO]

Glen,
I don't think there is a "right" or "wrong" way. The way my grandfather taught me to do it was to discharge the grass onto the mown side. You stress the mower and tractor less this way possibly prolonging the life of both over the long haul. If you want the clippings finely cut or almost mulched then you can discharge into the uncut grass or mow twice. I think this only matters if you're like me and let the grass grow really tall. When it's like that I would have to take a half swath or less if I threw the grass back on the uncut stuff and I hate taking less than a full swath if possible.

 

[StoneHeartFarm]

I too usually discharge to the mown side, except if I'm mowing alongside the road or along the lot line. Then I'll discharge to the unmown side to keep from throwing anything toward anyone or anything breakable.

SHF

 

[b8200hst4wd]

No I tend to shoot cliping into the road. But otherwise mowed side unless I'm near the land scaping the 2 into the unmowed side then out to the mowed side

Alex (B8200/HST/4WD/FEL/MidM/Tiller

 

[watersjj]

I discharge clippings onto the mowed area in a effort to avoid windrows of dead grass. If you wanted to mulch the grass, I understand Kubota has a mulching kit with blades and discharge block you may want to check out.

 

[looch]

I agree with the others that you shouldn't put undue stress on your machine by discharging into the uncut side.
The pattern I use to mow my lawn, because it's a fairly large rectangular area, starts with mowing a swath right down the middle then mowing back along one of the edges. I then start the cycle over again by moving one width over on the middle swath and so on and so forth moving slowly across the lawn. This means that in one direction the discharge is on the cut side and in the other it's in the uncut side. Every so often, depending on the thickness of the grass, I'll skip a swath in the uncut-side direction. I call these "relief rows". They prevent excessive build up of cut grass caused when you "carry" those clippings across the lawn.

 

[JonLeonard]

I prefer to use a bagger and avoid the issue all together /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[frank_f15]

whenever possible ALWAYS dicharge to the mowed side. less strain on machine.

 

[glennmac]

Paul,

As I understand your method, you are mowing one row, turning sharply at the end of the row, and then mowing the next row in the opposite direction. This would mean you are alternately discharging into the cut and uncut rows, an interesting compromise. Does this alternated row mowing give the "striped" look to the lawn that you see on ballfields, eg? I'm going to try that pattern to find out. The Simplicity riding mowers claim this capability but they seem to enhance the striping with a full width cylindrical roller on the rear of deck.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by glennmac on 06/23/01 07:27 AM (server time).</FONT></P>