In 2009, 3 grass seed production and marketing companies and an internationally recognized turf grass breeding and research station acknowledged the need for an Independent Foundation that promoted plants that had been scientifically documented to have proven water conservation benefits. Pennington Seeds, Proseeds Marketing, Turf Merchants, Inc. and Nexgen Turf Grass Research combined resources to establish the Turf Grass Water Conservation Alliance (TWCA). Partially inspired by the EPA’s Water Sense Program, TWCA began to establish protocols for acute and chronic drought stresses on individual varieties using digital image analysis (DIA) to measure the exact amount of living plant material during various stages of water deprivation.

To date, four strategically located sites around the United States have built fixed roof Rain out Shelters to restrict natural rainfall in the plot areas during drought stress periods. The data being generated determines only those varieties that have exceptional drought tolerance as defined by TWCA’s protocols.