Buddyvines
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- Jul 6, 2013
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Anybody have any experience with a Husky MZT 52 with the bagger or e Kubota Kommander 100 series?
Mower, sans bagger though..
RR,
Why do so many prospective ZTR shoppers look for baggers???? Seems like a big hassle to collect/dispose of grass clippings(which aren't as big of a problem with a ZTR puttin' out 18,000 fpm BTS). When I had a lawn tractor, I invested $200+ in a lawn sweeper to pull behind it, but it was so much trouble to empty it I stopped using it and got a mulch kit instead. If you have a compost bin I see some kind of benefit to collecting grass clippings, but otherwise, IMHO, baggers and lawn sweepers are a waste of money. Someone enlighten me to the real benefit!!!
I've tried everything. I started off bagging with a side catcher that I could dump from seat into a compost pile. At first I loved it, but it quickly became a huge pain. The little side catcher filled up so fast I was constantly making trips to the back of the property to dump, and trying to maintain the pile into usable compost was extremely tedious.
I gave up and bought a mulching kit. At first I loved it. Mowing was taking much less time. Clipping were disappearing quickly. Lawn looked great. As time went on I found that if the grass wasn't very dry it would cake up under the deck and fall off in clumps every time a stopped or turned. These clumps would not disintegrate and started making the lawn look bad and was a pain to clean the deck frequently.
This season I switched back to side discharge with some G6 blades to help mulch the grass up a bit more. At first I loved it. I could mow full speed without bogging down the motor, and clippings still seemed to disappear within a couple days. Later into spring though, the grass was growing sow rapidly that clippings would not disappear by the time I had to mow again. And the mower would create large wind rows, that I would have to go over again with the deck raised to disperse. So I basically had to always go over the whole lawn twice, and there would still be persistant brown clumps on top, and the kids and dog would track clippings into the house.
So now I'm full circle again and am looking to get a large rear powered bagger. That kind of setup costs more than I was ever hoping to spend, but seems like the way to go and is what all the neighbors seems to do (either home owner or pro). By having a large bag I won't have to make as many trips to the back. Having it powered will let me mow in the wet without clogging to keep on schedule so it doesn't get too long. Instead of trying to maintain a compost pile, I'm just going to dump it out of site and forget about it.
I demoed a Gravely Pro Turn with their Extreme Flow bagger (which appears to just be a Humboldt) in my long wet grass and was amazed at how well and how much it gobbled up. I was interested in both the Husky M-ZT and the Kommander, but ruled them both out because their baggers looked insufficient. Humboldt makes baggers for a lot of mowers (Hustler, Bad Boy, Gravely, etc.), but doesn't appear to to make them for those two. You can see this list here: https://www.grasscatchersusa.com/index.html