# Midseason Scalp Question



## cglarsen (Dec 28, 2018)

I dropped the HOC about 7/16 inch on my triplex - was mowing about 13/16 previously and it almost stalls out at slow speeds on my hybrid sections. When others scalp do you do partial passes? I don't want to over-stress my engine and hydraulics but perhaps the density is long overdue for a reset. Since I don't catch clippings there is an incredible amount of clippings and thatch to sweep up but this is my first time going to town at this time in the season.


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## southernbuckeye (Sep 29, 2019)

This is a tough situation, at that HOC the amount of material you're going to be pulling up is immense. I've tried it two different ways:
1. Go full Rambo and scalp low without your triplex baskets on. You'll obviously be spraying out a ton of material and running right back over it again. It works best to keep your passes in one direction so you can accumulate a row of bulky clippings along one side of the lawn for cleanup. Then go over everything with your rotary+bagger attached (or if you can manage it, skip the bagger and set it up so the clippings "dump" is facing your woods or some other part of your property you don't care about, then run over it with your rotary without bagger, side discharge facing the woods). You're still going to have to go over the entire yard with the rotary several times to get remaining piles, because tons of clippings will still accumulate all over the yard.
The problem with this method is that as you drive over all the clippings and try to pick them up with the rotary, it tends to compact the thatch (which by this point has been finely mulched by your triplex) into the ground, which is exactly what you don't want. And of course your rotary will never be able to suck up all the clippings anyway so you'll have to go over it all again with your triplex anyway with the baskets.

2. Keep the baskets on and just start mowing at the scalp HOC. In my experience, I literally make it 25-30' and they're full. Dump and proceed. On my lawn it takes dozens of empty cycles and last time I did it this way I ended up with two giant piles around 5' tall in my woods. What is normally about a 30 minute cut cycle on my triplex took about 3.5-4 hours. But at the end of the day there was less atomized thatch compacted into the ground and everything was "cleaner" then trying to recruit your rotary to help.

I supposed you could work the HOC down iteratively but with the time it takes to adjust the HOC on a triplex and the fact that you'd be making tons of passes anyway, I'm not sure there's a big time savings to be had there. My preference at this point is just to bite the bullet and do option #2, but each to his own. I just like the clearer canopy/base I end up with when I use the triplex as much as possible.

Good luck, when I did it last weekend I was going from .400 to .180 (although, to be fair I had a lot of thatch and was getting tons of reel float, so it was probably closer to 600-700 actual height) and I couldn't believe how much came up. Going from 13/16 to scalp height is going to be a lot. I'd be interested to hear if someone else chimes in with a silver bullet for this type of situation.


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## cglarsen (Dec 28, 2018)

@Southern Lawn thank you that helps. I figured there's no good way to do this but it's good to confirm. Unfortunately I don't have baskets on my machine I've been searching the world for them and John Deere just doesn't have them in circulation for the 2653 at reasonable prices I was quoted $2500 to put them on at the dealer.

I do however have a lawn sweeper that does a good job of sweeping up clippings and it holds about 20 ft.³ it's just going to take a lot of passes cutting and then sweeping cutting and sweeping. I have No where to put the clippings either except trash cans so I think I'm gonna have to make a few trips to the dump I don't have any wood that's actually mine unfortunately.


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## southernbuckeye (Sep 29, 2019)

Good luck @cglarsen , that's insane on the baskets. I got mine on here in the equipment section, they come up from time to time.


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## cglarsen (Dec 28, 2018)

For JD? I thought you had a Jacobsen triplex. I thought about trying to rig baskets from the 260 sl. I'm really tiring of clippings sitting on top of the canopy and yellowing.


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## southernbuckeye (Sep 29, 2019)

Yes I have a Jake. But I've seen JD baskets come up for sale as well.


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## socerplaye (Jun 14, 2018)

@cglarsen i just ordered a set for my 2653b for this reason but it only ran me about $1600 for the catchers and mounting kit. Still expensive but I've not been able to find them anywhere. Definitely looks like an easy install. Going to do it tomorrow and I'll let you know how it goes. Ordered them on Monday from Greenville Turf and Tractor and they were delivered on Thursday. Free freight when ordering on Tuesdays or Fridays.

Billy


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## cglarsen (Dec 28, 2018)

socerplaye said:


> @cglarsen i just ordered a set for my 2653b for this reason but it only ran me about $1600 for the catchers and mounting kit. Still expensive but I've not been able to find them anywhere. Definitely looks like an easy install. Going to do it tomorrow and I'll let you know how it goes. Ordered them on Monday from Greenville Turf and Tractor and they were delivered on Thursday. Free freight when ordering on Tuesdays or Fridays.
> 
> Billy


Thanks Billy, please let me know how you like them and installation process. Glad to know another 2653 owner!


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## cglarsen (Dec 28, 2018)

Never going to let my bermuda jungle get this long again. That pile is probably 800 lbs of material. 

You can really tell where the Tiftuf and better variety common are located - they scalped much worse than the coarser common bermuda sections. 


Sprayed some PGR and I'm calling it a day.


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## socerplaye (Jun 14, 2018)

@cglarsen looking good! Hoping to scalp mine this week if we can go a day without a pop up shower! Install of the mounting hooks and baskets was a breeze. Probably would have only been about a 15 minute job but the rear deflector for the rear unit was gunned up and kinda rusted so moving it to the top took some time to get it cleaned up. Will take some getting used to in order to smoothly remove and replace the rear basket.


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## Mewwwda (Jul 15, 2020)

@cglarsen So you scalped then sprayed PGR? Will the PGR not make it slower to green back up or will it only affect growth?

I ask because I scalped mine yesterday and was thinking of spraying pgr along with the 13-13-13 I put down, but talked myself out of it not knowing how it would affect green up.


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## southernbuckeye (Sep 29, 2019)

Woof, that's a lot of work. Nicely done. I second not letting it get that tall ever again!


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## cglarsen (Dec 28, 2018)

@socerplaye Looks awesome! I am going to give them a call and see if that setup fits my 2653a the same way. Your reels are newer than mine. 
@Mewwwda Yes, it will slow down green up a bit probably but I don't care - tired of mowing and going on vacation soon. I'm going to lock it down with T-Nex and Anuew on my next application.


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## socerplaye (Jun 14, 2018)

Definitely going to take a minute. Started working on scalping the back yard tonight. Going from probably 1.5" to lower then 0.75" and I had to empty twice on this one strip. Didn't help that the grass was starting to get some dew on it.


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## socerplaye (Jun 14, 2018)

Progress is slllooowwwww


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## cglarsen (Dec 28, 2018)

socerplaye said:


> Progress is slllooowwwww


I empathize. That's looking tight. How do you like the basket mowing?


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## socerplaye (Jun 14, 2018)

cglarsen said:


> socerplaye said:
> 
> 
> > Progress is slllooowwwww
> ...


The baskets are nice but fill up quick with it being so long so it can be demoralizing as I try to scalp but I think will be nice not to have to try and pick all the clippings up with my toro walk behind.

Ran over it with the zero turn last night and knocked it down some so hopefully the progress will be faster today and I can finish it up.


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## Jagermeister (May 18, 2021)

cglarsen said:


> @socerplaye Looks awesome! I am going to give them a call and see if that setup fits my 2653a the same way. Your reels are newer than mine.
> @Mewwwda Yes, it will slow down green up a bit probably but I don't care - tired of mowing and going on vacation soon. I'm going to lock it down with T-Nex and Anuew on my next application.


@cglarsen New to this process. Sounds like HOC reset / mid-season scalp and verticut is best practice. A lot of people are using PGR in mid-season so seems like this would happen often. If you do the mid-season scalp and on PGR, will it take a super long time to green up again?


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## cglarsen (Dec 28, 2018)

Jagermeister said:


> cglarsen said:
> 
> 
> > @socerplaye Looks awesome! I am going to give them a call and see if that setup fits my 2653a the same way. Your reels are newer than mine.
> ...


I'll know soon but I highly doubt it since the lateral growth will still occur.


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## cglarsen (Dec 28, 2018)

cglarsen said:


> Jagermeister said:
> 
> 
> > cglarsen said:
> ...


I'm all greened up again so to answer your question definitively - No.


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## cglarsen (Dec 28, 2018)

Scalped the backyard in a stepwise fashion because the mower simply couldn't handle the density of this Tahoma. 0.75" to 0.25" looked like a hayfield before it got swept.


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## socerplaye (Jun 14, 2018)

My common Bermuda greened up in less than a week. The places where I had sod laid took a little longer, but I've just been mowing it over and over at the .75" that I scalped it at every few days and I'm noticing the green filling in more and there's less brown each time I mow. Considering scalping down to 0.5" &#129315;


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