I talked about the research we are doing in conjunction with Helena Chemical Company on the practice green in past posts. We are using about 800ft2 of the 10,000ft2 green to evaluate about 20 different foliar fertilizer trials. Each week, the researcher who is actually performing the study comes on site to apply and evaluate trials. One method of evaluation is this color meter. When set down on the turf, it measure the 'green-ness' of the turf and quantifies that by assigning a number value to it. This number is based on a comparison to a control; it doesn't mean that 0 is dead and 1.0 is perfect turf. The quality of a putting green has many more variables than being that simple. However, grass is green due to the presence of chlorophyll which is critical to photosynthesis. Therefore, the greener it is, the more chlorophyll there is in the plant. On the flip side, grass that is too green, could indicate turf that is over fertilized and effect, weakened. When comparing side by side trials, this can be very useful tool.