9 to 11 blade comparison Cancel The title field is required!

1. John Vice

   

   7 posts
   
   1/5/2021 1:01 PM

   I've been given a 9 blade set of reels for my greens mower with the purchase of 2 tee mowers, but really wanted to have an 11 blade set to match my other triplex.  This past season I mowed with 1 -  11 blade mower and 1 - 14 blade mower and just kept rotating F9/B9.  Has anyone seen much of a difference between 9 to 11 blade cut on greens?  Very low budget facility where owner will spend $1500 on a 10 year old mower, put $500 into it to get 2 more years out of the machine.  Thanks.  

   
   
   
   
2. Chris Nicholas

   

   5 posts
   
   1/7/2021 9:01 AM in reply to John Vice

   Anecdotally, I have seen it is easier to reach our green speed goal with more blades on a reel. If you aren't trying to push crazy speeds I don't think anything could go terribly wrong with using 9 blades but I have no experience with it.

   
   
   
   
3. David DeVetter

   

   1 posts
   
   1/8/2021 8:01 AM

   The more blades you have, the faster you can mow and still match your frequency of clip (FoC) to your height of cut (HoC). We cut our greens at .150. To match the HoC we run our mowers at 3.2 mph with an 11 blade reel. We could achieve the same FoC with a 9 blade reel by slowing down to 2.6 mph.
   
   Good Luck!

   
   
   
   
4. John Vice

   

   7 posts
   
   1/8/2021 9:01 AM

   Thanks guys.  Was thinking what could be the best method to this due to our situation, but I think I've got my owner into buying another set of 11 blades and using the 9 blades as sand reels during topdressing to save our 11 blades.  Crossing my fingers it happens.