Grass Baggers

[kubotasaurus]

Well, after this Spring's grass cutting my lawn looks more like a hay field just before it's baled than the usual short green weeds. It has been a good experiment in seeing how well my BX cuts long wet grass, but has brought some serious disapproval from she-who-must-be-obeyed.

The good thing is that I now have my marching orders from her to get some sort of grass collection device for my tractor.

The headscratching bit is that I am in the middle of reckoning whether I should upgrade from my BX to something larger. Right now the vote is for a B7500 or B2410. I'm finding I could use a little more power and clearance for some of my jobs.

So, any recommendations on baggers? Tow behind or 3 point hitch?

Are those lawn sweepers any good or are they only useful for little lawn tractors? They sure are a lot cheaper than a bagger. This will be one of my challenges when presenting the proposal!

If any of you have time to reply now that the rain has stopped I sure would appreciate your insight.

Kubotasaurus

 

[Anonymous Poster]

What I\'ve done with regular lawn mowing

If my wet fescue gets too tall and too wet for my self propelled mulcher mower, I sometimes will mow with the old side delivery snapper. Yes, it looks like a hay field.

But give it about three hours in the sun to dry (like a farmer would prior to baling), and then mow it with the mulcher. The dry cuttings will easily be ground up in the mulcher and your debris is gone.

Don't see why this wouldn't work on a larger scale.

Hope it helps, but it doesn't support your proposal for a new toy, sorry.

 

[Pks]

I have a regular garden tractor (17 hp Cub Cadet) with a bagger. It will not pickup wet grass; the shoot clogs.

I have seen some bagger systems that use a secondary blower on the side of the mower deck to push the grass into bags hanging off the back of the tractor. I think such a system has been designed for the B2400/2410.

I gave that Cub Cadet to my dad and I use a 72" 3pt finish mower for my<font color="blue"> lawn.</font> When the windrows appear, I go back over the lawn with a 42" leaf sweeper and pick up the grass that way. The grass then goes into the compost pile (she-who-must-be-obeyed loves that /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif ). The leaf sweeper cost about $230. The deck for the B2400 cost about $2300 and the bagger for would have been another $2300. That made the choice easy. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif I settled for a used 3pt 72" deck and the new sweeper.

You might try mowing differently (cross hatch works nicely). Or the additional sweeper.

 

[kubotasaurus]

Much as I dislike the picture of me towing a little lawn sweeper along, I think that may be the eventual solution. I just can't justify the $1800 that Kubota want for their bagger - and I don't have the tree leaf problem to justify anything more fancy like one of the vacuum systems you see.

I am interested in that B2410 / 72" RFM combination that you have though. Is that a side discharge or rear discharge deck?

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I'm a bit confused. I mow with a BX and have only had to sweep after the cottonwood invasion. I had to sweep up winrows with my old mower. The BX fans the clippings out nicely if you mow when cutting about 2 or 3 inches off the top.

 

[kubotasaurus]

I only used to have problems with windrows mowing over my septic field. Seems the grass always grows greener there! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

This year it looks like a hayfield because of all the rain. With the combination of perfect grass growing conditions and rainy weekends I have not been able to keep up. Since it's just an occasional problem I think I'll go the cheap and cheerful route.

I'm not up for raking 2 acres of grass so that means a tow behind lawn sweeper. I see that Northern Tool does the Agri-Fab 46" for $260 ...

 

[RichC]

I always used my riding lawnmower for cutting grass (not enough grass to justify an attachment for my B7500).
The chute would always clog when the grass was wet.
I suspected it was partially because I had dulled the cutting blades by hitting sticks, stones and mole hills.

So this year I put on new blades and ran the engine wide open, kept my forward speed moderate and hit the wet grass before it got too tall. That did the trick!

The wet grass made it up the chute and into the bags. Only once did it clog when I hit some 12" + tall grass.

 

[Pks]

That RM 600 can be configured to discharge on both sides simultaneously or just on one side or if I had the other side plate it would act as a seudo rear discharge/mulcher.

It's a bit of a pain going around lots of trees because the rear swings outboard during a turn. But I can go through 4 feet of grass at almost full speed.

For lots of straight line work, it's a real great mower. Even though I have a lot of trees to go around, it's so good in the straight sections as well as cutting up leaves into real tiny pieces, that I don't have the heart to trade it for a belly mower.

The real ugly part of it is that it can throw a rock or branch a LONG ways (200 ft at last count /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif ). Therefore, we have a standing rule: when I'm in the yard mowing, everybody else is in the opposite yard or inside the house.

 

[TresCrows]

It would be cheaper to mow more often and not when the grass is wet. The BX should not be leaving windrows if used properly. My 2410 or BX neither are bad about that--if I mow frequent. I have never understood grass clipping collecting--must be some kinda Yankee thing /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif. Some of my neighbors do that, looks like work, my yard is the best grass around here.
I hate to tell you this, but "she who must be obeyed", may not like the mowing result from a 7500/2410. It will b be noticeably uneven compared to the BX and the wheels leave marks in the lawn and grass stripes where they knock grass over, the mower passes over these blades and then they spring back up. The result is streaks of high grass the width of the wheels. Also, removing the MMM requires installing the FEL to lift the tractor front wheels unlike the BX which can allow the MMM to roll out with the tractor down on all fours. J

 

[Pks]

I heard that the mmm for the larger B units allowed the front wheels to drive over the deck. Thus not requiring lifting by the FEL.