I have tried them all. In my experience, deck pitch does not make hardly any difference at all. Maybe it is the grasses around here, or cutting heights I do not know, because others claim it will help a bit. I have tried everything else. On our grasses, chains are least effective in my opinion. Flaps work fine especially on more easily influenced grasses. On more stubborn grasses, a roller works great, but it must be at the right height. On a small belt drive walk behind, a deck mounted roller may not work well because when the roller comes in contact with the ground, it adds a bit of drag and it takes away the weight of the deck from the drive tires, so it loses traction. This is more a problem on rough ground, hillsides and when using a sulky. Again, it depends on how it is adjusted. I have a Proslide and it does a good job as well, but of all these things, the roller is the most effective in my area. The roller and Proslide is a deadly combination!!! I have that on my eXmark, it does great. Also, double blades will really help a lot too. If you have a fixed deck, use a deck flap, it will work well. I had that on my Scag and it did a good job. It would seem the Proslide would be best of all, but in my opinion, it does work well but by the time the Pro gets to the grass blades, they have already been bent another direction. With a deck flap or roller, the blades of grass get bent immediately after they have been sucked straight up by the mower vacuum. If you have a fixed deck mower, try a flap and chains, or flap and Proslide, or just a Proslide or just a flap. I think these will be your best bet. Double blades will really help too. Make sure you do not overlap any more than necessary, on small mowers this is important (when the drive tires are right up against the edge of the deck like on small mowers, if you overlap too much they overwrite the stripes by bending grass in another direction). The tires do a lot of striping by themselves.
Good luck, happy striping and have a great 04 season,
Eric
