{"id":1053,"date":"2020-07-20T12:22:51","date_gmt":"2020-07-20T16:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.seagrant.w3.uvm.edu\/2020\/07\/20\/mo-monday-saving-time-creating-healthy-lawns-and-bringing-peace\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T17:49:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:49:21","slug":"mo-monday-saving-time-creating-healthy-lawns-and-bringing-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/2020\/07\/20\/mo-monday-saving-time-creating-healthy-lawns-and-bringing-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"Mo Monday: Saving Time, Creating Healthy Lawns and Bringing Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\tThere are several great things about robotic mowers like Mo. First, they save you time, which we know is important to landowners in the Lake Champlain basin when it comes to lawn mowing.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAs we started the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/outreach\/stormwater\/lawn-care-best-practices\/raise-blade-research\">Raise the Blade<\/a>\u00a0project, we surveyed people around the Lake Champlain basin to understand their lawn care practices and motivations to potentially mow their grass no shorter than 3\u2033 in length if they were not doing so already. (<a href=\"https:\/\/atlas.lcbp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Basin_Poster_2016.png\">Check out this Lake Champlain Basin Program\u00a0map<\/a>\u00a0that you can zoom in on to see if your town lies within this drainage basin).<\/p>\n<p>\n\tMore than 1000 people from 56 towns across the Lake Champlain basin\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lawntolake.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/HealthySoilsSurveyInfographic_RevisedApril2018.pdf\">answered our survey<\/a>. (Thank you all!)<\/p>\n<p>\n\tWe learned that almost 90% of homeowners mow their lawns (rather than having someone else do it), and on average, 75% cut their lawns shorter than 3\u2033. We also learned that those who mow their grass to between 2\u2033 and 3\u2033 in height would be motivated to cut their grass to the recommended 3\u2033 length for three main reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\tIf the lawn was healthier as a result (67%);<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\tIf mowing it to that length was good for the environment (64%); and<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\tIf they had to mow less often (58%).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\n\tThe first two are absolutely true\u00a0and therefore make our job of marketing these best practices to the majority of people who cut their lawns to 2-3\u2033 pretty easy. Unfortunately, cutting your lawn following the three recommended practices (i.e., cutting the grass no shorter than 3\u2033 in height; cutting only 1\/3 of the length of the grass blades in any one cutting, and leaving the clippings in place to decompose) doesn\u2019t result in less time mowing, unless you either get someone else to mow it for you or get something\u00a0else to mow it for you. There\u2019s where Mo comes in. We have him programmed to mow every week day for several hours. That frees up time for us to do other things besides mowing the lawn on our weekends or weeknights.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<picture  data-picture-mapping=\"quarter_width\" data-picture-align=\"left\">\n<!--[if IE 9]><video style=\"display: none;\"><![endif]--><source srcset=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/quarter-width__wide\/public\/uploads\/MoUndersideDime.jpg?itok=kdgOWI5e 1x\" media=\"(min-width: 1200px)\" \/><source srcset=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/quarter-width__desk\/public\/uploads\/MoUndersideDime.jpg?itok=gkJKBGJY 1x\" media=\"(min-width: 960px)\" \/><source srcset=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/half-width__tablet\/public\/uploads\/MoUndersideDime.jpg?itok=3Z-zppdf 1x\" media=\"(min-width: 600px)\" \/><source srcset=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/full-width__mobile\/public\/uploads\/MoUndersideDime.jpg?itok=ZHlhqDrw 1x\" media=\"(min-width: 0)\" \/><!--[if IE 9]><\/video><![endif]--><br \/>\n<!--[if lt IE 9]>\n<img decoding=\"async\"  data-picture-mapping=\"quarter_width\" data-picture-align=\"left\" src=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/flexslider_full\/public\/uploads\/MoUndersideDime.jpg?itok=GLXoG-es\" alt=\"Mo, robotic mower, blades\" title=\"\" \/>\n<![endif]--><br \/>\n<!--[if !lt IE 9]><!--><br \/>\n<img  data-picture-mapping=\"quarter_width\" data-picture-align=\"left\" srcset=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/flexslider_full\/public\/uploads\/MoUndersideDime.jpg?itok=GLXoG-es 800w\" alt=\"Mo, robotic mower, blades\" title=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<!-- <![endif]-->\n<\/picture>Having said that, it occurs to me that I should mention that robotic mowers like Mo don\u2019t have blades like your traditional gas-powered mower. Instead they have just three 1\u2033 razor blades.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRather than cut every blade of grass they go over, Mo and his fellow robots rely upon lots of time spent out doing their job, and many passes over the same spot to ensure every blade of grass is cut.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tHere\u2019s a close up of one of Mo\u2019s blades with the dime for size comparison.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAdditional benefits of using a robotic mower are that it can be programmed to \u2014 or it automatically follows \u2014 all three recommended grass-cutting practices. This helps to boost your lawn\u2019s health, soil health, and ultimately benefits water quality by minimizing the amount of stormwater that will run off from the yard. Specifically:<\/p>\n<p>\n\tWe set Mo to cut the grass to 3\u2033 in length.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tEach time Mo heads out in our yard to mow, he cuts only a small amount of the length of the grass blades.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tMo always leaves the clippings to decompose in place.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<picture  data-picture-mapping=\"quarter_width\" data-picture-align=\"right\">\n<!--[if IE 9]><video style=\"display: none;\"><![endif]--><source srcset=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/quarter-width__wide\/public\/uploads\/MoDial.jpg?itok=gtF6oH9a 1x\" media=\"(min-width: 1200px)\" \/><source srcset=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/quarter-width__desk\/public\/uploads\/MoDial.jpg?itok=yy5Q8P-7 1x\" media=\"(min-width: 960px)\" \/><source srcset=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/half-width__tablet\/public\/uploads\/MoDial.jpg?itok=VT3v4pFt 1x\" media=\"(min-width: 600px)\" \/><source srcset=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/full-width__mobile\/public\/uploads\/MoDial.jpg?itok=btSf1Okn 1x\" media=\"(min-width: 0)\" \/><!--[if IE 9]><\/video><![endif]--><br \/>\n<!--[if lt IE 9]>\n<img decoding=\"async\"  data-picture-mapping=\"quarter_width\" data-picture-align=\"right\" src=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/flexslider_full\/public\/uploads\/MoDial.jpg?itok=J0ODe3GD\" alt=\"Dial on Mo\" title=\"\" \/>\n<![endif]--><br \/>\n<!--[if !lt IE 9]><!--><br \/>\n<img  data-picture-mapping=\"quarter_width\" data-picture-align=\"right\" srcset=\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/flexslider_full\/public\/uploads\/MoDial.jpg?itok=J0ODe3GD 800w\" alt=\"Dial on Mo\" title=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<!-- <![endif]-->\n<\/picture>Of the three practices, only setting the length to which Mo cuts the grass needs to be done manually, and this is easily done by turning a dial under the main cover on the body of the mower.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tOne further benefit of robotic mowers is that they are beautifully quiet. Being electric, most of the sound we hear from Mo\u2019s direction is that of the grass blades being cut, though he does have a slight hum. For all intents and purposes though, Mo is silent in comparison to a traditional gas-powered mower. So, we feel good about not contributing to noise pollution in our neighborhood. All the more time to listen to the birds.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/kstepenu-mo\/\">Read more about Mo on Kris Stepenuck&#8217;s blog pages.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are several great things about robotic mowers like Mo&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1697,"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-1053","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\/1053","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=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1374,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions\/1374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}