Egon
Epic Contributor
For me it would depend on the shape and obstacles of the area to be mowed. Height and density of grass, bag or not bag and the mower being used.
Egon
Egon
How do you mow a field?
- Thread starter karmakanic
- Start date
MikePA
Super Moderator
John and Dave,
There's also software available that will use as input a sequence of pictures and stitch them together that can create a 360 degree picture. PanaVue ImageAssembler and Panorama Factory are two examples. You take a series of pictures and overlap the content slightly. The software then identifies the common features and stiches them all together.
Here's a <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.michaelrdowling.com/images/Panorama.jpg>link</A> to my daughter's field hockey team of a few years ago. It's made up of 5 or 6 separate pictures. Since I was not in the center of the group, the angle changed too much from left to right and the software could not handle the rightmost picture, but handled the rest.
Who would use such software? Real estate agents can use it to create a 360 degree picture of the rooms in a house.
There's also software available that will use as input a sequence of pictures and stitch them together that can create a 360 degree picture. PanaVue ImageAssembler and Panorama Factory are two examples. You take a series of pictures and overlap the content slightly. The software then identifies the common features and stiches them all together.
Here's a <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.michaelrdowling.com/images/Panorama.jpg>link</A> to my daughter's field hockey team of a few years ago. It's made up of 5 or 6 separate pictures. Since I was not in the center of the group, the angle changed too much from left to right and the software could not handle the rightmost picture, but handled the rest.
Who would use such software? Real estate agents can use it to create a 360 degree picture of the rooms in a house.
Dave,
I mowed 2.5 acres every week during the long north Texas mowing season for 4 years on an Ariens lawn tractor with a 48" deck. In the begining of the season I mowed starting from the outside working inward. I also had the tendency to to swing out on the turns to increase the turn radius. This allowed mean to maintain a constant speed. As the season dragged on I would start changing the pattern. Sometimes I used the method you have described. Other times I would mow the land diagonally, but that isn't very efficient. When I really needed some excitment, I would mow in curves, and then continue along that pattern until the opportunity to make a new shape. Yup, I believe crop circles are the creation of bored people. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif Now that I have a "real" tractor, but less area to mow, I still follow the same patterns that I used with my Ariens. The tractor doesn't strike me as being less manueverable.
I mowed 2.5 acres every week during the long north Texas mowing season for 4 years on an Ariens lawn tractor with a 48" deck. In the begining of the season I mowed starting from the outside working inward. I also had the tendency to to swing out on the turns to increase the turn radius. This allowed mean to maintain a constant speed. As the season dragged on I would start changing the pattern. Sometimes I used the method you have described. Other times I would mow the land diagonally, but that isn't very efficient. When I really needed some excitment, I would mow in curves, and then continue along that pattern until the opportunity to make a new shape. Yup, I believe crop circles are the creation of bored people. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif Now that I have a "real" tractor, but less area to mow, I still follow the same patterns that I used with my Ariens. The tractor doesn't strike me as being less manueverable.
frank_f15
Super Member, Rest in Peace
i start out just as u say, but i might make 3 or 4 cuts though the field so i always have an easy turn to et back on a path to uncut grass, u will get the hang of what works best fo ur situation.
Soundguy
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I've experemented with starting in the center, and making a circle ( spiral outward ). Works good. You have like an 8' diameter area in the middle you have to hit, but after that it is pretty easy.. Obviously this has to become an elips rather that a circle if you have rectangular property, and will of course need boundry and corner work.. but it is so much easier than making those exagerated 90's and missing the next 5' of grass .
Soundguy
Soundguy
I was bored as I was mowing the other day and contemplated this very question.
Now as we all know a bored engineer is trouble. I decided to prove mathematically which is the fastest way to mow a field by determining which pattern would yield the shortest distance travelled.
I will not bore you with the details but mowing in straight passes parallel to the long axis of the field is ALWAYS the shortest distance. I examined laps, back and forth parallel to the long axis and back and forth parallel to the short axis for several different field shapes (all rectangular). Let me reiterate that back and forth parallel to the long axis results in the least amount of travel distance. I even took into acount the sweeping turns at the ends.
As for the method described by IH unless you can leave a full mower width between passes you are underutilizing your mower. I think if you have a JD you can get the Greenstar GPS module for it and mow in perfect rows but until you do I stand by my reccomendation.
JT
Now as we all know a bored engineer is trouble. I decided to prove mathematically which is the fastest way to mow a field by determining which pattern would yield the shortest distance travelled.
I will not bore you with the details but mowing in straight passes parallel to the long axis of the field is ALWAYS the shortest distance. I examined laps, back and forth parallel to the long axis and back and forth parallel to the short axis for several different field shapes (all rectangular). Let me reiterate that back and forth parallel to the long axis results in the least amount of travel distance. I even took into acount the sweeping turns at the ends.
As for the method described by IH unless you can leave a full mower width between passes you are underutilizing your mower. I think if you have a JD you can get the Greenstar GPS module for it and mow in perfect rows but until you do I stand by my reccomendation.
JT