This project highlights one component of a broader portfolio of center-funded research initiatives focused on developing novel approaches to complex scientific challenges.

Efficient irrigation is essential for maintaining turfgrass quality in lawns, landscapes, and golf courses while conserving limited water resources. Water needs vary by species, soil type, and topography, making large-scale irrigation management challenging. Current approaches often relies on visual assessment of leaf wilting and soil moisture sensors, which are difficult to scale. While RGB, multispectral, and thermal imaging are increasingly used in turfgrass precision management, polarization imaging, which measures the direction of light waves, remains largely unexplored. Polarization is strongly influenced by surface roughness and orientation, detecting structural and geometric changes in leaves. Research in crops like maize and peanuts has demonstrated the potential of polarization for removing sun glare and detecting disease-induced canopy change. Our hypothesis is that polarization can capture leaf wilting events in turfgrass under different sun angles. If proven true, polarization can be integrated into the existing remote sensing pipeline for precision turfgrass management. To test the hypothesis, a controlled dry down experiment was conducted and repeated on six turfgrass cultivars: ‘Zenith’, ‘Empire’, ‘Zeon’, and ‘Lobo’ zoysiagrass and ‘TifTuf’ and ‘TifGrand’ bermudagrass. Plants were grown in pots in the growth chamber and subjected to drought treatment and control. Polarization, RGB, and 3D depth images were collected daily, as well as visual leaf wilting using a 1 to 9 scale (1=completely wilted, 9=no wilting). The polarization metric, degree of linear polarization (DoLP) of drought-treated turfgrasses diverged from the well-watered control at the same day the first visible differences in leaf wilting was observed (Fig. 1). The change of DoLP is consistently different compared to the control regardless of sun angle. The results of the controlled studies have demonstrated the potential of polarization imaging to be able to capture changes in leaf wilting under drought, with DoLP values increasing. Future work will translate this knowledge into small-plot field trials.