{"id":1052,"date":"2020-07-27T08:27:17","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T12:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.seagrant.w3.uvm.edu\/2020\/07\/27\/mo-monday-does-cutting-grass-to-3%e2%80%b3-vs-shorter-really-matter\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T17:49:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:49:21","slug":"mo-monday-does-cutting-grass-to-3%e2%80%b3-vs-shorter-really-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/2020\/07\/27\/mo-monday-does-cutting-grass-to-3%e2%80%b3-vs-shorter-really-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Mo Monday: Does Cutting Grass to 3\u2033 vs. Shorter Really Matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMoving down the road from Mo for the moment, as part of the Raise the Blade<\/a> project, in 2017, we\u00a0partnered with10 Burlington area businesses to establish research plots\u00a0where undergraduate interns would manage two grass plots at each business by mowing them to 3\u2033 and 2\u2033 in height, respectively.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe know from our\u00a0basin-wide survey<\/a>\u00a0that, on average, 53% of Lake Champlain basin homeowners maintain their grass to 2-3\u201d in height. This group is motivated to potentially cut their grass to 3\u2033 in length instead of shorter for reasons\u00a0most often related to grass health and health of the environment, so we set out to use demonstration research sites at local businesses to see if cutting grass to 3\u2033 would result in measurable differences in grass health over time as compared to cutting grass to 2\u2033. (Peer-reviewed literature suggests it is, but research was generally conducted under different conditions than here in the Lake Champlain basin.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\n
\n
\n
\n\"Student
\n\n<\/picture>The students would take a variety of measurements to assess grass and soil health over time. This was set up as a long-term (~10 year) experiment, as we hypothesized that changes in grass and soil health would be slow to develop, if any changes occurred at all.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to collecting annual soil samples that are analyzed at the lab, weekly each summer and fall, the student researchers collect information such as percent grass cover, percent clover cover, and percent bare ground within a 1-meter square quadrat.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey also measure how long it takes for water to infiltrate into the ground and assess soil compaction.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2019, we ran analyses on a variety of parameters the students assess after collecting two years of data. We found no statistical differences between the 3\u2033 and the 2\u2033 research plots (as expected). However, as can be seen in the photo at business partner, Curtis Lumber, at the top of the page, visually, the grass cut to 3\u2033 sometimes appears to be slightly more drought resistant than the grass cut to 2\u2033.<\/p>\n

\n\t\n
\n
\n
\n\"Lawn
\n\n<\/picture>Back in our yard, when the neighbor\u2019s landscaping company mows, they sometimes cut the grass very short along the boundary line between our yards. Initially, the difference between where Mo mows (on the right) and where the landscaping company mows is striking.<\/p>\n

\n\tOur lawn is also stressed, but is not nearly as burnt as our neighbor\u2019s. To be fully transparent about the site, our rain gutter empties near the front of the photo at the right\u2013by the milkweeds. As such, that grass has an added source of water and is clearly more green than elsewhere. However, while the lawn towards the back of the photo is less green and obviously stressed, the grass is visibly more stressed in our neighbor\u2019s yard than in our own. So, while the jury is still out on whether there are measurable differences between grass and soil health when grass is managed to 2\u2033 vs. 3\u2033, generally-speaking, grass cut very short is visibly less tolerant to drought and high temperatures than grass cut to 3\u2033.<\/p>\n

\n\tRead more Mo Monday blogs on Kris Stepenuck’s blog page.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moving down the road from Mo for the moment, as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-1052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1373,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions\/1373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1052"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=1052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}