New guy here, but wanting some input or validation on my thinking with the scenario I find myself in. I own a Craftsman ZTL 7000 with a Briggs & Stratton V-Twin 24hp gross. Cutting heigh maximum is 3.25". In moving out to a new home on 5 acres, we needed to plant summer rye grass in order to establish a new lawn as it was too hot for normal grass seed at the time. We ultimately planted about 2 acres of that as a lawn until the fall when we put down normal full sun grass seed.
As that rye quickly established and grew, I started mowing it, only to find that this Craftsman zero turn would choke/chug unless I only took on about a half or sometimes quarter of the amount of grass. The mower's struggles resulted in decent size clumps of grass being formed from the thick rye blades. There were occasions where I would still have to go back and cover the same area twice in order to get it all cut. Ideally, we'd want to collect these clippings and use it for compost on our farm, but that's been a significant challenge with the "passive" bagger system where that rye just gets clogged in the tubes running back to the bags. I never mow when it's wet and we have zero trees anywhere that would cause any shading. We also have regular and steady winds out of seemingly any direction. Land is largely flat but does have some gentle slopes overall.
As I research other zero turns locally, it seems a 3.25" cutting height is pretty low overall. Seeing top end heights of 5" or 5.5" seems like it would be much better for my application. Am I thinking about this right? Would a higher deck height be a solution in having to mow this thick and dense grass? We do plan to keep about an acre of our lawn as rye for the future. I don't think the Craftsman mower is bad overall, it's been a great machine for our previous home and never given me major issues, I just need to be able to mow evenly and ideally collect those clippings every other time for compost use.
For what it's worth, we also have a Kubota B series tractor. I've been evaluating if a Kubota zero turn would be better for us with a welded deck and higher heights and alignment of any service work with the dealer we already work with for the tractor. I don't want to use a mid mount mower as I don't want to company the lawn too aggressively with the weight of a tractor. If anything, I'd use a flail mower on the lawn, but that feels like a worst case scenario.
Thanks for reading and any thoughts.
#2
Blackdiamond1983
One thing I would recommend is making sure your blades are sharp. Second is you may have to mow at a higher deck hight.and possibly mow twice.
Near as I can tell, that Craftsman ZTL 7000 has a 50" deck and a 24HP engine.
If:
- the engine is running properly
- the deck is working properly (no bound up spindles, no caked up dried grass)
- the blades are sharp
- you're not mowing when the grass is too tall or wet
then I think a 24HP engine should have no bogging problems. 24HP should be plenty of power if everything is working properly. How well does it do if you don't bag?
I have an entry-level commercial/prosumer ZTR with a 54" deck and a 27HP engine mowing at 3", and, since fixing my engine problems, my mower acts like it's not phased by mowing. I can mow at full speed (if the yard isn't too bumpy), which is around 9-10mph, and the grass looks as good as if it were mowed at a quarter that speed. I don't know what grass I have, and admittedly, it's not super thick. Maybe Rye is much thicker than what I have, and I don't bag. I've also mowed my sister's yard. Her grass is thicker than mine, and my mower has no problems with her grass either. My previous mower had a 48" deck, and a 17HP engine, and it DID struggle on my sister's grass, but I'm also not convinced that everything was working properly on that mower.
If we do the math, my prosumer ZTR has 1HP for every 2.0" of cutting width. Yours has 1HP for every 2.08" of cutting width. My old mower had 1HP for every 2.8" of cutting width. Yours has almost the same power for each inch of cutting width as my current mower.
If you're going to be mowing 2 acres, I'd recommend something bigger than a 50" deck. You're going to be spending a LOT of time mowing.
