Measurement of turf height and growth using a laser distance device

Abstract

AbstractGrowth or yield is an important characteristic to measure in crop science experiments. Turf researchers often use rulers or harvest grass clippings to measure growth and yield, respectively. Rising plate meters or floating disk meters are used for nondestructive measurements of forage canopy height to estimate herbage biomass, but this technique is not commonly used by turf scientists. Using the rising plate concept and integrating new technology, our objective was to develop an easy‐to‐construct, low‐cost device that could rapidly and accurately measure canopy height, growth, and estimate yield in turf research. A device called the “Turf Height Tester” with a floating platform and a laser distance measurement tool was constructed within a US$167 budget. The tester was able to precisely measure recently mown turf canopy height at the tested bench heights of 4.9–10.2 cm. The Turf Height Tester was advantageous for comparing the growth of turfgrasses with contrasting growth rates, and turf response from N fertilizer applications in a nondestructive manner. The tester, which outputs data via Bluetooth to the nearest 0.1 mm, correlated well with other turf canopy height measuring tools but had a lower CV. Collecting ∼18 measurements per minute, the tester allows for data collection from 1.8 plots per minute (includes 5 pre‐ and 5 post‐mowing measurements) compared with the more labor‐intensive practice of harvesting and weighing grass clippings from a rotary mower with a bagging attachment at 0.2 plots per minute. Further, there was a strong relationship across experiments (R2 = .62–.94) between growth measurements using the tester and dry matter clipping yield.