Can You Cut Grass In The Rain
One question that home owners want to know is can you cut grass in the rain?
The simple answer is yes.
With that being said there are some reasons why you may not want your lawn mowing service to cut your grass before, during or right after it rains.
Let’s go over them.
Weather and wet grass are a lawn services biggest problem
Rain can throw off the whole schedule delaying any mowing for days.
When you own a lawn care company your constantly monitoring the weather for any rainy conditions that may be coming your way.
Often times especially in Syracuse NY spring time brings the challenge of keeping up with fast growing grass and periods of rain.
So what do we do?
Unfortunately we have to wait it out until conditions dry out.
Some of the reasons not to cut grass in the rain
- Clumping
- When grass is wet it sticks to everything including the underside of the mower deck. Even with commercial mowers you still end up with clumps of grass scattered throughout the yard.
- Bad cut
- Wet grass does not stand up straight. It tends to lay over making it harder to cut possibly leaving straglers or spots where it is not level.
- Ruts
- The ground gets soft as it absorbs the rain. Commercial mowers are heavy weighing 700lbs to over 1000lbs. Mowing wet grass with a commercial risks the chance of leaving big ruts in the lawn.
- Disease and fungi
- Cutting wet grass doesn’t allow the blades to cut cleanly. Instead grass will be torn or ripped opeing the door for disease and fungus to get a foot hold.
- Mower wear and tear
- Wet grass is considerably heavier than dry grass. Even though commercial lawn mowers have powerful engines they may still feel the strain.
- Unsafe
- Grass can get very slippery when wet. This can be a problem when cutting on slopes and hills especially with commercial mowers weighing hundreds of pounds. Riders risk rolling over.
How long after it rains can I mow the lawn
Now that we know its not a good idea to mow the lawn in the rain the next question is how long after should we wait?
If your a DIY homeowner then you can be patient and wait for the lawn to completely dry out.
But for lawn care companies providing mowing service we have to get back to work otherwise our schedule gets backed up.
Not only that but the grass keeps growing.
With that being said the only way we can get back to mowing the grass is after the ground itself has dried enough the heavy mowers won’t leave ruts.
Its possible that the grass is still a little wet but if the soil can handle the weight of the mower its back to work for any mowing service.
Typically residential mowing companies also have the smaller lawn mowers in 21″ to 30″ cutting widths.
Worst case scenario these could be used if we thought the ground wasn’t dry enough for a heavy mower.
It would take a little longer to get the grass cut but at least we could get it done!