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Above: Productivity based on the equipment size can be an overlooked factor. Moving up to the larger capacity mower is a function of equipment cost verses man-hours saved. For example, a 16-foot wide mower will mow approximately 14.5 acres per hour verses a 6-foot mower at 5.4 acres per hour.
Left: The Contour Mower attachment features an 84-inch working width, with three decks that float and independently follow the contour of the terrain with up to 40 degrees of motion for each side deck. The MJ840 also features full rear rollers for even cutting and striping, rear discharge, and a flip-up deck design. This attachment is offered by Ventrac.
Aerator Width Acres Aerated Per Hour
45" 60"
75" 90"
2.19 2.92
3.65 4.37
12' (144") 7.05 15' (180") 28 LC DBM
Chart, left: By having the client step up to a wider slice aerator, the same worker can cover a lot more acres per hour. The chart shows the improvement in acres per hour by going to a wider aerator. These figures are for the Aerway Aerator.
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the goal box on each side, the entire length of the field (approximately the hash marks of a football field) and a few passes deep on the sidelines where the parents, team mem- bers and referees run. This is approximately 20,000 square feet or less than an acre. A football field is 60,000 square feet and
a soccer field can be from 70,000- 90,000 square feet. Since I am only having them aerate in one direction and aerating ap- proximately one-third or one-quarter of the field, one man aerating at 3.5 acres per hour can cover approximately six times the area in the same amount of time it takes to plug aerate the same field in two directions. Each of the Aerway Aerator machines has
8.75
the 100-gallon tank and a 6-inch turf tine as standard. As options (which I always rec- ommend) they can come with the greens- roller for smoothing the turf as you slice and a 7-inch fracturing tine (just exchange one shaft for the other) that literally fractures every square inch of the root zone seven inches deep. I have all my clients slice monthly with
the turf tine on the wear areas and once an- nually with the fracturing tine on the entire
field. The fracturing tine is solid enough that if a field has rocky soil (which can de- stroy PTO-driven aerators) and were to hit a rock the size of man's head, the entire aerator, tank and all would ride out of the ground rather than destroy the tine.
Choosing Mower Size The productivity based on the size of the
equipment works for other maintenance tasks as well. The 16-foot wide Toro will mow approximately 14.5 acres per hour verse the 6-foot Toro at 5.4 acres per hour.
Top Dressing The same calculations work for a top
dressing machines. If you take a 25 cubic- foot greens top-dresser when compared to a 4-cubic-yard top-dresser, the bigger one is 4.32 times larger meaning far fewer loads to finish a field. If you had to spread 60 cubic yards of material on a field, the small unit would need to be filled nearly 65 times while the larger machine would need to be filled 15 times. The ideas presented in this article represent only a few of the many ways we can save on maintenance costs.
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