Mowers:6UvearsOf changes

Picture mowing a fairway or athleticfield in the early 1920s. You see twobasic types of mowers, a walk-behind

reel mower (with or without an engine) anda gang of ground-driven reels pulled by anagricultural-type tractor. The walk-behindprovided a fine cut and the gang an accept-able utility cut. Many of these mowers hadto be altered by the greenskeeper or ground-skeeper to suit his needs.

Ten years before it was common to seea horse pulling a gang of reels across a golfcourse or park. Power in the form of agricul-tural tractors and even washing machineengines enabled many turf managers to turntheir stables into maintenance buildings. Asmall group of inventive machinists wentto work to take the mowing industry off hayand onto gasoline. They had some idea howto go about making these changes sincea British company called Ransomes, Jeffer-ies and Sims had powered models on themarket in Europe.26 sportsTURF

One of the original 50 reel mowers produced by Locke Steel ChainCo. In 1930. Locke president Tom Herrman stili uses It.

Beginnin'g in the late teens and '20s, thefoundation of the gasoline-powered reelmower industry was established. NationalMower Company, Locke Manufacturing andJacobsen started producing powered walk-behind reel mowers. Worthington Mfg. Co.,which had been manutacturtnq reel gangsfor horse-drawn mowers, National and Torodeveloped tractors v !th reels suspendedfrom the sides and below to provide the kindof maneuverability needed on golf coursesand other large turf areas. Reel gangs,however, continued to playa large role inmowing large turf areas for decades tocome. Worthington, Toro, Jacobsen, Ran-somes, Roseman, National, Brouwer, andJerry Clipper still produce reel gangs today.

Now picture mowing the same areas to-day. The walk-behind, reel gang and trac-tor mowers are still there, in modernizedversions, having survived the test of timefor more than 60 years. Today, the reelgangs are used on golf course roughs and

large areas around fields on university cam-puses and park grounds. The walk-behinds,many with grooming attachments on thefront, are found on golf and bowling greens,croquet courts, grass tennis courts andsmaller areas of fine turf. Riding reel mowersup to 15 feet in width mow entire golfcourses, parks and campuses in a singleday.

A little closer look, however, will revealan entire generation of rotary equipment,a budding fine-cut flail mower market, low-slung four-wheel-drive tractors with inter-changeable attachments and widespreaduse of hydraulics. Maneuverability, speedand efficiency far exceed those of the '20s.Some mowers even sport digital gauges thatprovide exact information important to oper-ation and maintenance. Mowing today isa far cry from hooking up reel gangs to ahorse's harness and snapping the reignsto get the horse to walk.

While reel units were the first type of

professional mowing equipment, rotary unitsdeveloped in the early '50s assumed a sub-stantial position in the turf market by thelate '70s. Established largely by Goodall (nowBunton) and Whirlwind (now Toro), the com-mercial rotary mower rapidly gained accep-tance for areas where a fine cut was notessential. It had no reels or bedknives togrind, was highly maneuverable and waseasy to service and maintain. It was alsosimpler to manufacture.

Jacobsen took a strong position in thecommercial mower market in the '50s whenit bought Worthington and later startedmanufacturing rotary mowers. It was the be-ginning of a major competitive battle be-tween "Big Red" (Toro) and "Big Orange"(Jacobsen)-a battle that has played a majorfactor in the growth of the commercial andprofessional mower market.

Goodall charted new waters in rotarymowers when it introduced a 36-inch, self-propelled walk-behind in the early '60s. Byincorporating brakes on the two drivewheels, Goodall was able to build a wider,heavier mower with good maneuverability.It also brought the concept of zero turningradius to the industry. The operator couldturn the mower, much like a Caterpillar trac-tor, by applying the brake on one wheel whilethe other wheel continued to turn.

These concepts of maneuverability, largesize and zero turning radius were also ap-plied successfully by Gravely, Exmark, Kees,Toro, Snapper, Wisconsin Marine (now Ran-somes), Yazoo and other companies. Oddlyenough, these large, walk-behind mowersdid not achieve great commercial successuntil the early '80s. Today, walk-behind ro-taries stretch up to 60 inches wide. Sulkiescan be attached to them to provide an in-expensive riding mower. Jacobsen, JohnDeere, Scag and Lesco have since joinedthe group.

Excel, a manufacturer of tractor cabs, hadbigger things in mind and took rotary mowersize and maneuverability a step further.Rather than turning a small garden tractorinto a mower by suspending a rotary deckfrom its belly, Excel redesigned the driveunit so that the deck could be mounted infront. The company also invented a steer-ing mechanism consisting of two levers andindependent drive on the front wheels sothe mower could actually spin around in onelocation. After a little practice, the opera-tor could guide the front-mounted deck alongcurving walkways and around trees withoutslowing down. The deck could also be re-moved and replaced with a snowblower orplow blade.

In 1965, Excel added a larger engine anda 72-inch deck to cut mowing time in halfand nearly eliminate the need for trim mow-ing. Finally, the company replaced mechan-ical drive to the independently front wheelswith hydrostatic drive. In 1983, Excel boostedhorsepower further to add cutting decks onthe side of the drive unit called Range Wings.Now, a single rotary tractor could cut a swath15 feet wide, the same width as large, reelgangs.

Howard Price, Jacobsen, Ransomes andToro have adopted similar technology andadded hydraulic drive to the cutting decks.Hydraulics are also used to lift the side deckswhen necessary. Many of these principleswere quickly applied to tractor reel units atthe same time.

Out-front, riding rotaries today are avail-able from a number of companies, includ-ing Bunton, Cushman, Deines, HowardPrice, Ingram, Jacobsen, John Deere,Gravely, Kut-Kwik, Lesco, Middlesworth,Scag, Toro, Yazoo, and others. In the mid-'70s a small, family-owned company in Ohiodeveloped a small turf tractor to resemblethe latest large agricultural tractors. To re-tain maneuverability and to pull farm im-plements on soft or wet fields, ag equipmentcompanies had introduced four-wheel drivetractors that were hinged in the center.These articulated units had tremendous trac-tion and could turn in half the space it tooka conventional tractor. Once the SteinerCorp. had successfully miniaturized the farm

tractor, it began adding a wide assortmentof attachments, includinq front-mounted ro-tary and reel mowing units, broom, edger,scoop and blower. Like its big brother, itcan also pull implements. The Steiner fa-mily was satisfied with its small share of themarket which grew largely by word-of-mouth.That may be changing since Ransomes,Sims and Jefferies, the British parent com-panyof Ransomes, Inc., purchased Stein-er Corp. last month.

Hydraulic drive and using one tractor ordrive unit to power a variety of attachmentsforced turf equipment engineers to take acloser look at hydraulics. It takes more horse-power to drive hydraulic devices than it doesmechanical ones. However, hydraulic drivewill allow infinitely variable speed for boththe tractor wheels and for the attachments.It also enables manufacturers to eliminatebelts and pulleys and their adjusters.

An hydraulic system consists basicallyof a pump, powered either by the tractor

continued on page 28

John Deere's 3325 Pro Turf Mower cuts a 138-lnch swath as low as 318Inch. Instruments moni-tor 12 different operating functions.

The Metrae 3OO3Kfrom Lely Is a highly flexible prime mover that can operate attachments onboth front and rear. The low·profile machine has four-wheel drive and steering.

February, 1988 27

Scag's commercial walk·behlnd rotary mowers cut up to 61 Inches wide.

The Excel Hustler Range Wing mower can cut 60 acres of turf In an eight·hour day.

The Steiner tractor articulates In the center and features four-wheel drive. It can support a widerange of attachments both front and rear.28 sporfsTURF

Mowerscontinued from page 27

engine or PTa, that circulates oil under highpressure in hoses to small motors locatedon the devices to be driven. Valves regu-late the pressure and flow rate of the oil inhoses thereby determining the speed of themotor. Dirt or debris in the oil can harm thecomponents, so a filter in addition to regu-lar cleaning and maintenance are important.

Companies like National have chosen notto use hydraulics, preferring instead to pro-vide mowers with smaller engines, lowercost and simpler from a maintenance stand-point. Other companies, such as Excel andBrouwer, utilize hydraulics for hydrostaticdrive and lifting attachments but not for driv-ing attachments. Many manufacturers offermodels with different combinations ofmechanical and hydraulic drive.

"Hydraulics are here to stay," says Hel-mut Ulrich, product marketing manager withToro. "The operator has more confidencein hydraulics than he did four years ago.Manufacturers have made hydraulic "primemovers" simpler to service and more reliable.With hydraulics you can precisely match for-ward ground speed to the speed of thereels."

Tom Carter, vice president of Jacobsen,has been one of the pioneers in hydraulicmowing equipment. "Hydraulics have greatlyincreased the versatility of turf equipment,"he explains. "The operator has more con-trol than he has ever had." Carter admitsthat mechanics must be trained to main-tain and repair hydraulic units, but once thathurdle is cleared, the units provide great-er flexibility with no more maintenance thanmechanically- driven units.

Both Carter and Ulrich used the term"prime mover" frequently. The term is proofthat manufacturers are heading toward multi-use tractors or drive units. Prime moversthat can drive reel, rotary and flail mowingattachments will also be used for verticut-ting, aerating, vacuuming, blowing, brushingand more. As manufacturers expand theusefulness of mowing tractors, they are alsointroducing all-purpose prime movers. Ex-amples of these are the low-slung, four-wheel drive, four-wheel steering tractors cur-rently available from Bunton, Jacobsen andLely. They can drive attachments in frontor in the rear and have excellent stabilityon slopes. The Steiner articulated tractor,and Brouwers' new four-wheel drive trac-tors are smaller versions of all-purpose primemovers. Kubota introduced a four-wheelsteering mowing tractor in 1986.

As turf standards change, so must mow-ers. When Sylvanus Locke built his firsttriplex reel mower in 1928, he had no ideathat the triplex would set the standard forfairways and stadium fields 50 years later.In fact, it wasn't golf courses he had in mindwhen he designed it. He was thinking oflarge estate lawns and that was its primaryuse in the U.S. He didn't realize the potentialthe mower had for sports turf. When TomHerrmann purchased Locke in 1987, he

quickly discovered that the mowers werebeing used in Europe primarily for sportsfields.

In the '70s, Jacobsen, Ransomes, andToro introduced lightweight triplex greensmowers to reduce the time it took golf coursecrews to cut the greens in the morning. Asprestige courses started raising the stan-dards for fairways, the triplex began to spendmore time on the fairways than on thegreens. Superintendents were impressingclub members with the striped, sharp-edgedpattern imparted on the fairways with themowers. At the same time, the lighter weighttriplex caused less compaction and allowedthe superintendent to pick up clippings, bothfactors in reducing populations of annualbluegrass on fairways. The mowers grewin importance as fairway cutting heightsshrunk to the half-inch mark.

Light-weight mowing had been born andthe triplex, and later larger light-weight units,were the mowers of choice. The golf coursemowers started finding their way into profes-sional and university stadiums across thecountry. The mowing pattern in the outfieldof baseball fields and between the five-yardlines of football fields has also become thestandard for stadiums.

The trend was good news for Locke andNational, that had been making triplex andfive-reel mowers since the early '30s. Les-co introduced its first triplex in 1986.

Changing standards for greens are having

Three-wheel drive provides improved traction and maneuverability for Jacobsen's Tri-Klng 1471triplex reel mower.

a big impact on greensmowers. As golferswanted greens on their course to be as fastas those seen during championships on tel-evision, the superintendent had to respond.At first he tried lowering the height of cutand topdressing with sand to make the golf

ball roll faster and further. He verticut thegreens lightly and frequently to remove ex-cess tillers and thatch that could slow theball down. These maintenance practiceswere not only time consuming, they were

continued on page 30

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Mowerscontinued from page 29stressful to the bentgrass, bermudagrassor overseeded ryegrass. The superinten-dent needed a device that would enable himto speed up his greens without creating ad-ditional stress.

It took Larry Lloyd, an inventive Califor-nia superintendent, to come up with the an-swer, a grooming device attached to the frontof the greensmower. Not only did the deviceremove the tillers, stems and thatch dur-ing mowing, it stood the turf up so it couldbe cut as evenly as possible. He found thathe could reduce verticutting, let the grassgrow higher and thus healthier, and eliminatemuch of the grain on the green without slow-ing down ball roll.

Jacobsen bought the rights for the groom-er from Lloyd and began offering the devicein 1986. It consists of vertical blades posi-tioned to slice turf and vegetation raised upby a grooved, crimping roller. "It's not a ver-ticutter as we know it," explains Carter. Re-cently, Bunton, Deere, Lesco and Toro havedeveloped their own versions of a groom-er for their greensmowers.

The next step for mowers is advancedcontrol, predicts David Legg of Ransomes,Inc. Digital read-outs will tell the operatorinformation critical for operation and main-tenance. Reel mower operators will be ableto know what speed the reels are turningin addition to ground speed. They will beable to check an entire list of engine and

Brouwer powers the reels on Its seven·gang with the tractor PTa but uses hydraulics to raiseand lower them for transport.equipment conditions to gauge performanceand efficiency.

Most importantly, says Jacobsen's Carter,the control system will warn the operatorof problems immediately so that they canbe corrected before damage to the equip-ment takes place. A multi-function checksystem will tell the operator when main-tenance is needed so that the mower canreach its maximum life and productivity.

Greater flexibility, closer control over cut-ting conditions and increased efficiency havechanged and will continue to change mow-ers for sports and utility turf. Indications arethat refinements of existing technology will

be coming rapidly in the next five years. Theywill be primarily in the tractor or drive unit.As the horse was replaced by the first trac-tors earlier in the century, the tractors weknow today will be replaced with "primemovers".

"We may mow turf with lazers in the fu-ture," says John Kinkead, president of Na-tional Mower Company. But for the moment,manufacturers are testing fine-cut flails toserve as a type of intermediary between reeland rotary. Reels still provide the best cutwith the least amount of energy. Increas-ing efficiency without sacrificing quality re-mains the driving force behind th~'~,ndustry.

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