Lawn Striping issues

Hi all

For the past 3 or 4 cuts my stripes have not been looking good.

The stripes are lighter on the outer edges and darker down the centre, hopefully this can be seen in the pic below.

I have no idea what is causing this. I have adjusted the blades on the cutter but it doesn't improve.

If anyone knows what is causing this and how I can fix it I would be greatfull for some advice, many thanks

 

Hi Elli, I'm pretty sure that it's uneven levels on the blades, or maybe one blade needs sharpening. Sorry I can't be of more help re. how to correct it, but I'm sure someone more knowledgeable about mowers will be along shortly!

 

What mower are you using, type and manufacturer?

 

Hi Liz, it's a Suffolk Punch cylinder mower.

 

It does look like you are simply over lapping too much on one pass as its the rear roller that produced the lines hence the wide strip one way and the narrow strip the other.

 

Thanks for the replies.

I have gave the blades a good clean and carefully adjusted them. I will do the paper cutting test to see if any blades seem to be blunter than others.

I didn't think of the overlapping, that may be the problem. Next cut I will be paying more attention.

 

Damn you, you beat me to it

It definitely looks like the left side of the blade is lower than the right.

@Elli - I would recommend giving your lawn a watering in the evening for a few days. The lop-sided blade may have scalped strips and the grass could die unless there's a serious downpour expected very soon.

 

It's often very difficult to see but if you look at any lawn which is striped with a slight overlap you'll see the pattern that you're seeing on yours. In some lights it'll look lighter, in others it'll look darker. It's accentuated at the moment as yours looks dry as a bone and the lawn's struggling with being cut too short. Raise the height of cut until there's more moisture around and you should notice an improvement.

If the blade was cutting low on the left side you'd see scalping only on the outer edges of two passes, not on both sides of individual passes.