What is ....? - (Mar/06/2013 )

Hi, I'm definetly out of profession here, however, I thought this might be a good place to start?

I am growing vegetables inside and I'd like to test the nutrient and/or health of a plant under artificial light.

I have access to the following meters.

1) HANNA INSTRUMENTS HI 96801 DIGITAL REFRACTOMETER 0-85% BRIX RANGE SUGAR ANALYSIS
2) Photon Systems Instruments - FluorPen FP 100 (basic model)

One of the plants I am growing is Wheat Grass, I understand it's poor quality without the sun but I wanted to know how to use the FP100

The website tells me that it measures the following things.


FT - continuous fluorescence yield in non-actinic light. FTis equivalent to F0 if the leaf sample is dark-adapted.
QY - Photosystem II quantum yield. QY is equivalent to FV/FM in dark-adapted samples and to FV ' /FM ' in light-adapted samples.

The big problem I have is... I have no idea what that means! lol

Is three anyone that can help me understand what these two meters can assist me with?

thanks to anyone reading or responding!

I'm not a plant biology expert and my courses are quite long ago, so I might tell wrong stuff, or not completely right, anyway:
FT might be a measure for photosynthetic intensity which is indirectly measured by the yield of fluorescence (which is emitted by chlorophyll too to get rid of surplus energy)
The second I've no idea.
and have a look here: http://psi.cz/download/document/manuals/fluorpen/FluorPen_Series_Manual.pdf