We need a new, heavy duty Z-turn.

[MilesToEmpty]

We currently have a Encore Prowler Z turn mower to mow our property. Great mower, but its just not heavy duty enough for our job.

Does a GREAT job cutting grass thats 2"-3" above the normal heigh (as normal for every weekend to mow it.)

However it doesnt handle our fast growing grass, that gets to be about 12" tall every time we get the chance to cut it. Thats about every other weekend.

So we are getting our Encore fully serviced and are looking to sell it. It has less then 150 hours!

We went to a local Deere and they told us we needed a Scag Turf Tiger and nothing else would do.... Thing is we mow 5 acres of grass max, every 1-2 weeks. Not every hour...

We were looking at the Scag Wild Cat, but we arent really sure about it seeing we cant find anyone with 1' tall grass lol.

 

[wushaw]

12" tall grass is gonna be hard for any side discharge mower for it to look good.

 

[coobie]

We currently have a Encore Prowler Z turn mower to mow our property. Great mower, but its just not heavy duty enough for our job.

Does a GREAT job cutting grass thats 2"-3" above the normal heigh (as normal for every weekend to mow it.)

However it doesnt handle our fast growing grass, that gets to be about 12" tall every time we get the chance to cut it. Thats about every other weekend.

So we are getting our Encore fully serviced and are looking to sell it. It has less then 150 hours!

We went to a local Deere and they told us we needed a Scag Turf Tiger and nothing else would do.... Thing is we mow 5 acres of grass max, every 1-2 weeks. Not every hour...

We were looking at the Scag Wild Cat, but we arent really sure about it seeing we cant find anyone with 1' tall grass lol.

IMHO,you will be hard pressed to find a ZTR that will cut 12 inch grass every week.I have a Kubota ZTR model 326 pro(commerical 26 HP diesel engine)60 inch deck that I mow with.Last week I mowed our cabin property grass which was 12 inch tall and I struggled a bit mowing at 5 inches.I think you need a tractor with a brush hog or rear finish mower.coobie

 

[shot_gun]

[QUOTEWe went to a local Deere and they told us we needed a Scag Turf Tiger and nothing else would do.... ][/QUOTE]

As a Deere dealer this burns me up. He could have sold you a 997 /60 and you would not have any problems. Z860/60". He must not be a green turf dealer. I would find one that is and ask for a demo!

 

[MilesToEmpty]

Well as we sit now the grass is 1-3ft high and we're going to need to ush the bush hog to mow it down. Then go around with a mower and clean it up.

The Deere dealer swore up and down that the only thing good for us was the 10k Scag, the Turf Tiger, and they wanted to weigh it down even more.

Every dealer we go to wants to sell us the best of what they have, not whats best suited for us.

Its flat, with a few steep hills. OUr old Zturn did fine going up and down the hills.

We jsut dont want to have issues with our Encore again and be stuck ordering these back ordered parts.

And I thought the 997 Z looked kinda chinsy lol.

 

[WH401]

As others have said, your going to have a hard time finding any mower that will leave a nice cut on 1' tall grass. Your best bet is to find a mower that is very deep, such as the John Deere 7 Iron deck. It also has the front lip of the mower deck built slightly higher than the back so that tall grass has a chance to raise up so that it can be cut evenly. Go look at the deck online so you can see what I mean.

I don't get the Deere dealer sending you off on a wild goose chase for a Turf Tiger. Not that that is a bad mower, it just doesn't make sense for them to send off a customer to the enemy when they have the perfect equipment for you right at there finger tips. Take a look at the 7 Iron, if there's one thing Deere does it's that they know how to make an awesome mower deck. Even most of the pros over on Lawnsite.com will say that the 7 Iron is one of the nicest cutting decks on the market. To add to that, if getting parts is your problem, Deere has one of the best parts networks in the country. They might take a day max to get a part in for you, the only time it might take longer is if it's something for a much older model.

 

[Alan L.]

I have a Scag Wildcat and have cut 12" grass several times. For the most part the cut quality is good, but I'd say not quite as good as it is when you cut it more often. You can slow down some and get a better cut.

If the grass is 12" tall and also thick and wet, then it would be pretty slow going. The grass I cut is more or less pasture grass, really not that thick. The grass sometimes is tall and very thick around my septic sprinklers. When its also wet I cut it at 5" and then finish the job.

I can say it does a much better job with the tall grass than I ever expected. Much better than the rear finish mower on my tractor. It works best when the blades are sharp and when the deck is not loaded up with hardened grass.

 

[MilesToEmpty]

As others have said, your going to have a hard time finding any mower that will leave a nice cut on 1' tall grass. Your best bet is to find a mower that is very deep, such as the John Deere 7 Iron deck. It also has the front lip of the mower deck built slightly higher than the back so that tall grass has a chance to raise up so that it can be cut evenly. Go look at the deck online so you can see what I mean.

I don't get the Deere dealer sending you off on a wild goose chase for a Turf Tiger. Not that that is a bad mower, it just doesn't make sense for them to send off a customer to the enemy when they have the perfect equipment for you right at there finger tips. Take a look at the 7 Iron, if there's one thing Deere does it's that they know how to make an awesome mower deck. Even most of the pros over on Lawnsite.com will say that the 7 Iron is one of the nicest cutting decks on the market. To add to that, if getting parts is your problem, Deere has one of the best parts networks in the country. They might take a day max to get a part in for you, the only time it might take longer is if it's something for a much older model.

Our Deere dealer is also a Scag dealer... yea we found that out when we were there lol.

I have a Scag Wildcat and have cut 12" grass several times. For the most part the cut quality is good, but I'd say not quite as good as it is when you cut it more often. You can slow down some and get a better cut.

If the grass is 12" tall and also thick and wet, then it would be pretty slow going. The grass I cut is more or less pasture grass, really not that thick. The grass sometimes is tall and very thick around my septic sprinklers. When its also wet I cut it at 5" and then finish the job.

I can say it does a much better job with the tall grass than I ever expected. Much better than the rear finish mower on my tractor. It works best when the blades are sharp and when the deck is not loaded up with hardened grass.

Thats good to know, Ill make a note of that.

Im gona post a few pics here in a min that shows what I need to mow.

its not Often its 1' tall, but it does get tall mowing every OTHER weekend. We go there on the weekends, and if its raining we jsut dont get to do it.

 

[MilesToEmpty]

 

[stevem5215]

I'm like the others. I don't think a ZTR will do the job. You need a bigger tractor with real hp and torque. I regularly cut 1 ft grass with a 60" finish mower on a 20hp FarmPro 2420 and a 72" finish mower on a 30hp Ford 1900. Neither one will cut it perfectly as it's just too high for that type of cut. And a brush hog while a better solution won't cut it evenly all the time when it's tall and thick. I've found that when it's tall that cutting 1/2 at a time will cut the 1 ft grass and the other 1/2 of the mower deck is on the 2nd pass of it. That seems to work the best. The 72" deck is a Woods RM. And Blade sharpness doesn't seem to matter much for cutting evenly. More important is keeping the RPM's up so that the mower deck is spinning at the rated speed. And if you try going fast it just loads down the PTO even more. I would imagine that a 50hp would probably do a better job at higher ground speeds but then you'd burn the deck belt up easier. There probably is a better way but I haven't seen or heard of it yet. The other thing I've noticed is that a compact tractor with a good size mower deck will get hot when running these mowers. I'm guessing that a 72" deck is just a lot of load on them requiring a lot of PTO power when trying to cut it quickly (like I do).

Steve