Texas FFA Nursery Landscape Practice Exam

What type of lawn mower has blades that are parallel to the ground?

1. De-thatching mower

2. Reel mower

3. Rotary mower

4. Electric mower

The correct answer is: Rotary mower

The correct answer is that a rotary mower has blades that are parallel to the ground. This design allows the mower to effectively cut grass by using a horizontal blade that rotates around a vertical axis. When the blades spin, they create a scissor-like action that trims the grass evenly at the desired height. This type of mower is particularly popular for residential lawns due to its efficiency and ability to handle thicker grass and various terrain types. In contrast, a reel mower utilizes vertical blades arranged in a cylindrical shape, which are designed to push grass against a fixed blade, creating a scissor action as well but with blades set in a different orientation. De-thatching mowers are specifically designed for removing thatch, and their blade configurations vary significantly from the standard operational modes of common lawn mowers. Electric mowers can be either rotary or reel types, depending on their design, but they do not specify a blade orientation as part of their classification. Hence, the defining feature of the rotary mower with horizontal blades makes it the correct answer in this context.