Perfect Your Lawn: 1/3 Mowing Principle

Perfect your lawn: 1/3 mowing principle

By Ian Lee

At ANTHBOT, we are not just about making lawn care easier, we are about making it better——for the plants, and you! So we studied it carefully, and the 1/3 principle is what we think is the most important point in the mowing process, so we want to share it.

Referring to: Christians, N. E. (2011). Fundamentals of Turfgrass Management (4th ed.). John Wiley & Sons.

1. What is the "1/3 principle"?

The "1/3 principle" means that each time you mow the lawn, the part that is cut should not exceed 1/3 of the grass height. According to this principle, the lawn should be mowed before the grass reaches 1.5 times the rated mowing height.

2. Why should we follow the "1/3 principle"?

For lawns that grow too high, it is harmful to mow more than 1/3 at a time. This will cause the lawn to lose too much photosynthetic organs on the ground, greatly reduce the photosynthetic capacity of the grass, and lose too much nutrients stored in the aboveground and underground parts, causing the lawn to turn yellow and weak, and more susceptible to disease.

3. How to follow the "1/3 principle"?

First: maintain a stable mowing frequency so that the grass does not grow too high. That is, it cannot exceed 1.5 times the rated height.

Secondly, if the mowing is not timely, resulting in excessive grass growth, it cannot be mowed in place at one time, but the number of mowings should be increased, and gradually mowed to the stubble height.

Although following this principle can make the lawn healthier and more beautiful, it is often difficult to always adhere to this principle in actual operation due to workload and time considerations. It's easy to go for a few weeks without mowing the lawn, and end up mowing it too much, leaving it brown for a while and taking a long time to recover.

4. How does Genie follow the 1/3 principle?

Genie is equipped with 4 cameras. Through stereo vision technology and AI technology, it can calculate the average height of grass in the lawn. Combined with historical mowing height information, grass growth rate and other factors, it can automatically adjust the height of the blade and follow the "1/3 principle" for mowing.

Based on the type of grass, the historical height of the grass and natural environmental conditions, Genie can calculate the length of time that the lawn grass reaches 1.5 times the rated height (of course, it is not advisable to mow too frequently), and then maintain a reasonable mowing frequency to ensure that the lawn is always in the healthiest and most vibrant state.

References: 

Christians, N. E. (2011). Fundamentals of Turfgrass Management (4th ed.). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN: 9781119204636.

Turgeon, A. J. (2011). Turfgrass Management (9th ed.). Prentice Hall. ISBN: 9780137074356.

McCarty, L. B., Hall, D. W., & Miller, G. L. (2003). Best Management Practices for Lawn and Landscape Turf. Clemson University.

Beard, J. B. (2001). Beard's Turfgrass Encyclopedia for Golf Courses, Grounds, Lawns, Sports Fields. Michigan State University Press. ISBN: 9780870135016.