How to Mow Over Rough Terrain & High Elevations
While the typical lawn you might see in photos is flat as a pancake and easy to mow, that’s not going to be true for everyone’s lawn. If you live up in the hills or mountains or you have a lawn that’s somewhat bumpy and uneven, then you’re going to have a harder time keeping your grass neatly trimmed and maintained. That is, you’ll have a hard time if you don’t have the right type of lawn mower and the right tricks for mowing in rough terrain!
Boehm Tractor Sales is your Texas lawn mower dealer, located in Shiner. Here are our top tips for mowing over challenging terrain, including in high elevations.
How to Mow Over Rough Terrain
You can do several things as either a private homeowner or a landscaping business owner to make mowing over challenging turf much easier:
- Mow slopes using a self-propelled push mower instead of a riding mower
- Instead of mowing side-to-side, mow up and down
- Go slowly on steeper slopes and hills while using ground speed so that you can avoid shifting and braking
- Adjust and maintain your lawn mower’s brakes and transmission
- Avoid mowing wet grass to prevent a loss of traction
- Install a rollover protection structure on your riding or zero-turn mower to keep you protected if your mower rolls on a hill
Shop For the Right Kind of Lawn Mower
It’s helpful to get the right equipment when mowing on challenging terrain so that you aren’t fighting against your machine’s limitations while trying to maintain your lawn. If you’re trying to find the right zero-turn or riding mower for difficult terrain, you’ll want to look for these features:
- Plush or air-ride or suspension seats to improve rider comfort over bumps
- Seat isolators
- Steering lever grips
- Foot mat kits to minimize vibration at your feet
Mowing Success in Higher Elevations
Your mower’s internal combustion engine may struggle with the thinner air in the mountains because the engine may not be able to intake enough oxygen to complete the power stroke and get the engine going. Your intake draws both gasoline and oxygen into your combustion chamber to be ignited by a spark plug, which generates power. Your engine is likely to idle without sufficient oxygen to complete this process. Air density decreases by a third with every 10,000 feet scaled over sea level, which is why engines will struggle more in a mountainous region than they will in a flat area near the ocean. Engines operate just like human lungs in this way, struggling more and more to pull in enough air to function as the altitude increases.
To that end, you should look for a naturally aspirating engine that lets atmospheric pressure control oxygen intake as it changes over altitude. Otherwise, your engine will need a turbocharger or supercharger to get enough power to go in higher elevations.
Electronic fuel injection (EFI) engine options are ideal for anyone mowing in high elevations due to the fact that they contain engine control units (ECUs). An ECU can obtain the atmospheric pressure of the area and pull in the necessary amount of air to let the engine operate correctly without losing power. ECUs help to make mowers operate more consistently while also providing better fuel economy at a variety of altitudes.
Ready to take a look at some great lawn mowers that can help to make mowing easier and faster than ever before? Browse our website to take a look at the wide stock of new and used lawn mowers for sale at our dealership location in Shiner, TX. Boehm Tractor Sales proudly serves the greater Austin metropolitan area as well as the city of Seguin, TX.