[jim cox]

Good morning,
I have a 54 inch deck and am thinking about adding the mulch kit.
Should I use the standard blades that come with the mulch kit or swap them out for a more aggressive type blade, i.e. Gator-Blades or similar?
Any idea what the JD mulch kit for this deck is selling for?
Thanks.
jjc

 

[jdaws]

You have to use the muching blades that came with the kit.
Gador blades will hit the mulching plug. I've been there!

 

[JoeyDel]

I have to disagree with jdaws. I have the 54" deck with the mulching kit and Gator blades, I forget which ones but they are the newer model, very heavy duty and nothing hits. Now I should add that when I purchased this tractor had a mulch kit but had a problem where the kit would not fit right and if I had forced it the blades would have hit. It turned out my brand new deck was damaged and the dealer attempted to repair it before I took delivery. After switching out the deck with one that was not bent everything fit nicely with no hitting.

BTW I knew something was wrong because the kit came off of an x340 that I briefly owned and those blades did not hit either.

The kit cost around $200 and come with a set of JD mulching blades that worked fairly well but I like the gator blades a little better.

 

[wizzo]

Since you pay for mulching blades when you buy the kit, I would start with those blades and see how they do. I know they will mulch great but in some types of grass that seem to leave uncut strips behind or grass that was just pushed over and not cut correctly. Now to be fair, that can happen with Gator blades as well but most people seem to be happy with them over the stock blades. I have used Gators on both the 42" and the 48" decks for the X Series and the Gators DO NOT contact the plastic on the mulch plug.

 

[Hostaman]

Good morning,
I have a 54 inch deck and am thinking about adding the mulch kit.
Should I use the standard blades that come with the mulch kit or swap them out for a more aggressive type blade, i.e. Gator-Blades or similar?
Any idea what the JD mulch kit for this deck is selling for?
Thanks.
jjc

I have always bagged previously until last year when I purchased my X729. I was counting on the sale of my used GT to help pay for a new bagger which are very expensive.

I liked the mulch kit (54") so much that I never considered the bagger again.

I used the blades that came with the mulch kit until leaf season and then switched to Predators. No problem with clearance under the baffles, but I was really never pleased with the cut. Reinstalled the stock mulch kits blades last week and like them mulch (haha) better. IMHO

 

[jim cox]

Thanks for the replies. I installed a kit on my soon to be retired/sold JD 260 and it worked well. (I hate bagging). However, until joining this forum and getting learned up, I had never heard of Gator blades or Predators. I thought blades was blades!
The kit I bought for the 260 was many years ago and at my age, well, I'll just say I don't remember things as well as I used to.
Happy mowing season.
jjc

 

[X485SENoob]

I use JD Predator blades with the mulch kit on my 54c deck year round. I think it's a great combination. Even if the grass gets away from me this time of the year and I mow a little tall, I rarely get clumping or windrows. YMMV

And if it gets TOO tall and you get some clumping, a quick pass with a sweeper takes care of that. And a sweeper is LOTS cheaper than a bagger!