There is one constant that never changes from year to year. The grass will grow in your yard and barn lot, and weeds will grow along roads, filter strips and drainage ditches.

The bottom line is that you will need to maintain quality equipment for each task. That likely means a garden tractor or zero-turn mower for yards and barn lots, and a rotary mower for everything else. How many large acreages of grass and weeds you must mow each year may dictate what size and type of rotary mower best fits your needs.

A revolution is underway in mowing equipment. Right now, it’s showing up in lawn-mowing equipment for yards and barn lots. Don’t be surprised if it doesn’t eventually reach rotary mowers through automating the power source that runs them.

What is it? Autonomous control. FJ Dynamics, known for producing efficient autosteer solutions, displayed an autonomous zero-turn lawnmower at the 2022 Farm Progress Show. You could ride on it if you wanted, but you didn’t have to if it was fully deployed.  

It takes on robotic qualities, determining location and guiding itself through use of GPS technology. You could be somewhere else while your lawn was mowed, and the barn lot was trimmed up too.

If there’s a drawback, it’s cost. Being new technology, it carries a hefty price tag. But it’s proof that precision technology and automation can even reach down to such things as mowing grass and weeds.

Word through the grapevine is that at least one other company in the lawn-mower business is developing a prototype that can also mow safely and efficiently without a driver.

Check out all the entries in mowing using the information provided with each item.