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A long, thin blade 90 to 100 centimetres (35 to 39 in) is most efficient for mowing grass or wheat, while a shorter, more robust scythe 60 to 70 centimetres (24 to 28 in) is more appropriate for clearing weeds, cutting reed or sedge and can be used with the blade under water for clearing ditches and waterways.
German cradle scythe from a painting by Ernst Henseler (1852–1940) A grain cradle or cradle, is a modification to a standard scythe to keep the cut grain stems aligned. The cradle scythe has an additional arrangement of fingers attached to the snaith (snath or snathe) to catch the cut grain so that it can be cleanly laid down in a row with the grain heads aligned for collection and efficient ...
One of 12 roundels depicting the "Labours of the Months" (1450-1475) A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting or reaping grain crops, or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock.
A reaper cutting rye in Germany in 1949. Hand reaping is done by various means, including plucking the ears of grains directly by hand, cutting the grain stalks with a sickle, cutting them with a scythe, or a scythe fitted with a grain cradle.
Wheat sheaves near King's Somborne.Here the individual sheaves have been put together into a stook ("stooked") to dry. A sheaf of grain on a plaque Sheafing machine. A sheaf (/ ʃ iː f /; pl.: sheaves) is a bunch of cereal-crop stems bound together after reaping, traditionally by sickle, later by scythe or, after its introduction in 1872, by a mechanical reaper-binder.
A flex head can cut soybeans as well as cereal crops, while a rigid platform is generally used only in cereal grains. Some wheat headers, called "draper" headers, use a fabric or rubber apron instead of a cross auger. Draper headers allow faster feeding than cross augers, leading to higher throughputs due to lower power requirements.
A mower with a scythe cuts a swathe along the mowing-edge leaving the uncut grass to the right and the cut grass laid in a windrow to the left on the previously mown land. The swathe width depends on the blade length, the nature of the crop, and the mower, but for grass is usually about 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) wide.
Weeds are cut just below the surface of the soil as the blade is pushed and pulled. The back and forth motion is highly effective at cutting weeds in loose or friable soil. The width of the blade typically ranges between 8 and 18 cm (3 and 7 in). The head is a loop of flat, sharpened strap metal.