Jacobsen HR-5111

Jacobsen HR-5111

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Another mower we use at the ATI groundskeeping shop is the Jacobsen HR-5111, or HR for short. This mower is a three deck, 11 foot mower powered by a 50 hp Kubota diesel engine. The HR is equipped with a 4wd drive system, which can be turn on and off on the fly, making travel time short, yet not giving up any power. The Jacobsen goes up most any hill, as long as the 4wd is engaged. If it's in two wheel drive it can't quite make it up some hills.

This mower is designed more for grass and mulching leaves than a front yard or golf course. It has screens in the rear of each deck that break up leaves and mulching them as you mow along. While this feature is nice, these screens tend to plug up quickly so you have to return to the shop and blow them out. And since it doesn't have rollers to strip the grass, it doesn't' give that nice, golf course style cut. While it can't do that, it does have three independent decks which can raised up or lowered depending on the situation. This is a great feature when doing trimming around trees or cars. Plus, the HR has a built in feature so that when you raise the deck, the blades shut off automatically. That being said, it has a problem with keeping the grass under the deck. When going through thick grass, it the fast wind created by the spinning blades blow the grass out in all directions from under the deck. If there is any wind blowing at all outside, the grass gets blown all over the driver and the mower itself. I really hate this problem and so does my bosses.

Overall, this a good mower for most normal applications. I would use it when mowing rough grass on the back forty, or somewhere that doesn't need that baseball field cut. I'm giving the HR a 7 out of 10, which I think serves it well. It cost around 45,000 dollars so it an expensive investment, and at the price, I think it should make a better cut. But it still has good qualities about it and does a fine job for what it is.