Football Pitch FAQ 17. Should I use a cylinder or rotary mower to cut our pitch?

This will depend on what you have available. Both can be used to good effect on a football pitch, in particular where a rotary mower also has a rear roller to provide stripes the presentation can look very similar to that of a cylinder cut pitch.

A cylinder mower, if correctly set, will always give a cleaner and improved finish than that of a rotary mower: This is due to the physical action of a cylinder being scissor like and a rotary cutting the grass through brute force of impact from the rotating blades.

Very high pitch standards will mainly see the use of pedestrian cylinder mowers, whilst for the majority of amateur pitches the use of ride on or tractor operated cylinder or rotary mowers will be the norm to provide satisfactory surfaces.

Rotary mowers are cheaper to buy and maintain than cylinder mowers, so these will often be the mower of choice for use on many pitches.

Another option to consider is that of an autonomous robot mower. These typically have very fine spinning discs and cutting blades, which could be thought of as a rotary razor blade.