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High lift blades v conventional

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Among all this snow talk, there are those of us who have chores that arent snow related - leaf and pine straw removal.

 

For many years I have 'wind rowed' the leaves/straw and it works reasonably well. I recently got hold of a set of high lift blades for my D-180 and am wondering just what do they do differently from conventional blades - would they 'suck' up the leaves better, and maybe mulching some and blowing them to the side better??

 

The pine straw is the pain, leaves will pretty much mulch up, but the straw not only doesnt want to 'lift' off the ground, but wont mulch at all and theres soooo much of it! - and I have around 100 large trees.

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AMC RULES

I'm thinkin' a lawn sweeper would easily pick those pesky pine needles up.

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chazm

:text-yeahthat:  I'm with Craig on this one  :handgestures-thumbupright:

 

Chasm :flags-waveusa:

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HorseWhisperer

:laughing-rofl:  :laughing-rofl:  :ranting:  :laughing-rolling:  :hide:  :hide:  :hide:  :jaw: I have tried a snowblower on leaves!It worked good at blowin them in the neighbors yard!

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leeave96

Among all this snow talk, there are those of us who have chores that arent snow related - leaf and pine straw removal.

 

For many years I have 'wind rowed' the leaves/straw and it works reasonably well. I recently got hold of a set of high lift blades for my D-180 and am wondering just what do they do differently from conventional blades - would they 'suck' up the leaves better, and maybe mulching some and blowing them to the side better??

 

The pine straw is the pain, leaves will pretty much mulch up, but the straw not only doesnt want to 'lift' off the ground, but wont mulch at all and theres soooo much of it! - and I have around 100 large trees.

 

I have high lift blades on a newer MTD Cub Cadet lawn tractor.  That thing REALLY slings the grass and in doing so, pulls a goodly vacuum too.

 

A couple of things to consider:

 

1.  One of the things that I think helps the CC is that the skirt of the deck is even all the way around.  It is not raised up like that on a SD deck for a C or 3/4/500 series tractor 42/48 inch deck.  You might get better vacuum if you lowered the front edge?

 

2.  If getting up the pine needles is a chore, as was stated above, a sweeper is great.  A better combo is a 36 or 42 inch rear discharge deck.  You can mow/disturb the pine needles and sweep all in one pass.  Don't know if a rear discharge deck was available for a D series tractor.

 

I like reading these warm weather posts this time of year!

 

Good luck,

Bill

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pacer
I like reading these warm weather posts this time of year!

 

 

Hah! Yeah, I like down here this time of the year - now this summer when the humidity & temp are both around 100 --- well...

 

I guess I should have been a bit more descriptive on my yard clean up - I have an older Yard Man with a 46" deck dedicated to a Cyclone vacuum that works beautifully, but I have such huge amounts of pine straw/leaves that it becomes a problem to dispose of it, so I like to 'windrow' where I can and 'blow' the straw to the edge of the yard. After 3-5 passes blowing it piles up to where it is too difficult to move it any further, I was hoping to maybe get another 2-3-4 passes with the D-180 and the hi-lifts, and from what you say, I just might can. The leaves are all off and if itll dry up some I am for sure gonna give the hi-lifts a try.

 

The D decks were 48 and 60 SD's, mine is a 48

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roscoemi

Try bailing them!

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leeave96

I like reading these warm weather posts this time of year!

 

Hah! Yeah, I like down here this time of the year - now this summer when the humidity & temp are both around 100 --- well...

 

I guess I should have been a bit more descriptive on my yard clean up - I have an older Yard Man with a 46" deck dedicated to a Cyclone vacuum that works beautifully, but I have such huge amounts of pine straw/leaves that it becomes a problem to dispose of it, so I like to 'windrow' where I can and 'blow' the straw to the edge of the yard. After 3-5 passes blowing it piles up to where it is too difficult to move it any further, I was hoping to maybe get another 2-3-4 passes with the D-180 and the hi-lifts, and from what you say, I just might can. The leaves are all off and if itll dry up some I am for sure gonna give the hi-lifts a try.

 

The D decks were 48 and 60 SD's, mine is a 48 Hmmmmmm - if your wind rows are large enough, maybe you could use a front blade to move the pile... ;)

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brandonozz

My neighbor has four large pine trees just on their side of the property line hanging over both yards. I can get about 90% of the pine needles up with my lawn sweeper and it does a better job at getting them up than trying to blow them back into their yard with a side discharge. It won't get them all as some get down deep in the grass but it will get most of them in my yard.

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