The Toro Company

Troy David Carson

Van Willis Cline

Kathleen Sue Rice

Chris A Wadzinski

Jackie Ray Gust

A probe assembly for measuring a synthetic turf infill profile having a probe, a turf surface contact assembly and a sensor. The probe is configured to extend down through the turf infill profile until a tip of the probe contacts a lower boundary of the turf infill profile. The surface contact assembly is vertically movable relative to the probe while the probe is being moved downwardly into the turf infill profile, wherein the surface contact assembly has a contact area with the turf surface that is large enough to retain the surface contact assembly resting atop an upper boundary of the turf infill profile when the lowermost tip of the at least one probe has contacted the lower boundary of the turf infill profile. The sensor reads the distance between the upper and lower boundaries of the turf infill profile at a sampled location in the turf surface.

Mobile turf instrument apparatus

A turf management system includes an irrigation system for providing water to the turf at a turf site, and an irrigation evaluation system for evaluating the performance of the irrigation system. The irrigation evaluation system segments the turf site into irrigation management units, where each of the irrigation management units includes at least one sprinkler head. Qualities of the turf are measured to generate collected data points. The data points are used by the irrigation evaluation system to compute a value for the turf in each of the irrigation management units. The values can then be used to identify irrigation management units having common characteristics. The values can be used to define irrigation management zones for controlling the irrigation system.

Turf management

Evaluating ground surface hardness for a site involves using a mobile data collection device to automatically drop an object including an accelerometer onto a ground surface at sample locations spaced at regular intervals within the site. The acceleration of the object is detected with the accelerometer as the object impacts the ground surface at the sample locations. A value is generated representative of ground surface hardness for each of the sample locations. Evaluation using a handheld hardness measurement device is also disclosed.

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Richfield, MN, United States of America

Troy David Carson