the grass doesn't cut!

Silly question...........are blades upside down?

Are your tire pressures low? causing the deck to sit lower and the front pushing the grass down.

Once drought stressed grass gets flattened. Not much other than a rake will get it to stand back up. So with that and your description I would venture to guess your foot prints stay there for days.

highlifts/doubles

maybe mulching kit to maximize suction of each blade

do you know what type of grass this is?

Sounds like another attack of the wicked "Floppy Grass"?

Sounds like rye to me.

I've seen grass get like that on over fertilized partial shade lawns.
I havn't found much you can do with the mower except what ElephantNest said about the double blades.
Core aeration will help the grass though. Aerate a lot and it will thin out the grass population. Then the blades will get wider and more like normal.
It takes about one full year to see results though.
Dave

YES! I have several lawns like that. It is almost like the grass is too thin or light to cut, it just falls dead before the mower gets there. Seems to happen a lot in well shaded or damp areas. The one thing I noticed that helps me is to drop the blades a notch or two. Might be a PITA if it only occurs in certain areas, but it will be worth it if this tends to bother you a lot. (especially if customers complain about it). try it out. hope this helps

Quite common with "big green" lawns. like tru-brown and such (and several privates, anymore). Thin wimpy lawn, Stressed from too much N. This is a bad combination in the heat.
Expert, when you want your lawns so thick that there is no ROOM for the blades to lay over, and the grass has much more resilience, you let me know. I can give you grass that you'd LOVE to be cutting, it makes YOU look good, as well.

we think it is a hard fescue, or it might be the ryegrass, too. We were thinking about aerating this fall, and dropping some hard fescue in it to help stand the blades up a bit. any thoughts? maby a different kind of grass?

What's the watering practice for the lawn your having the problem with.

Theres some of that thin grass in our front yard. I just look for the direction its bent before I cut it, and cut it FROM the direction its pointing. That way, it gets lifted up and cut. And like E.L. said, drop the deck a notch or two also.

Originally posted by griffithtlc
we think it is a hard fescue, or it might be the ryegrass, too. We were thinking about aerating this fall, and dropping some hard fescue in it to help stand the blades up a bit. any thoughts? maby a different kind of grass?

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As I said previously, I think overpopulation of grass plants is part of the problem. Overseeding would just add to the problem.
Are the number of plants really thick?

Bluegrass is indigenous here and it fills in really well. So maybe overpopulation of grass plants is just a local problem.

Dave

im gonna guess. u may have blow back caused by a tooo successful high lift .
umite try a standard blade.
if u are already using standard liftblade . try ,the reverse ma be true. try a high lift.