Lawn Mower Overview

What’s out there, what’s new, what’s
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By Leslie McGuire, regional editor

This overview is designed to give the landscape contractor or anyone involved in maintaining turf a basic knowledge of what’s out there, what’s new, what’s important, what’s exciting, what’s necessary and what the options are. Realizing that each business has different needs and requirements, we’ve chosen three different styles of mower: tractor, walk-behind and ride-on. Within each category, we’ve chosen machines that exemplify the different types of mowers available out there. We also suggest that you take a look at the websites of any of the manufacturers we’ve listed in order to get an even broader perspective.

From the standpoint of efficient business practice, we’d like to suggest that you take a look at the productivity chart before you begin. This chart, courtesy of eXmark shows you the efficiency rates of mowers with different sized mowing decks. Two productivity ratings are shown, one at 100 percent and one at 80 percent efficiency. Many manufacturers use 100 percent efficiency ratings for sales purposes. EXmark believes that an 80 percent efficiency rating may be more representative of actual mowing conditions since it allows for turns and overlapping. We’ve put it here to give you an idea of how to calculate which size deck is most efficient for your various jobs. If taking man hours into consideration, it might help a contractor calculate what his needs are, and how to most effectively spend money on new or upgraded equipment.