Fall Mowing Height for Cool-Season Lawns

Scalping cool season turf before winter is not a good idea. It removes leaf tissue that is being used to produce energy that Is used to grow the roots and rhizomes (belowground parts) thicker. Excess removal of the leaf tissue results in the plant using its energy to replace the leaf tissue, at the expense of roots and rhizomes. This also causes the soil to dry out more quickly and the lack of a canopy results in more opportunity for annual weeds to germinate and encroach.

The reason people do it is because they think getting rid of the old plant material will result in the plant generating new leaves to replace the old. They aren’t wrong. What they don’t realize is that replacement comes at a tremendous expense to the carbohydrate reserves in the plant, which result in weaker turf that is more susceptible to pests and environmental damage. Also, if done at the wrong time, the immature emerging leaves can be quite susceptible to winter injury.