Field Notes

Twitchell Rice: 2013-09-18 10:10:00 (DOY 261)
Author: Cove Sturtevant
Others: Joe, Laurie

Summary: Pulled ground instruments, rotated radiation boom inward. Corrected autocam view. All good.

Twitchell Rice
2013-09-18

We arrived about 10:10 PDT. It was windy, sunny, and warm (23 C). We met Jim who was about to test harvest a field (not ours), and if good they would harvest our field. He was waiting for the moisture to drop close to 18% (a field they tested a few days previous was at 20%). Jim said that there is a trade-off between harvesting early and paying extra drying costs (grain is eventually dried down to 14%) vs. harvesting later and losing grain due to bird consumption.

Joe and I attended to the tower, pulled all the ground instruments and rotated the radiation boom in while Laurie pulled the transect stakes in the field. I swiveled the autocam view back toward the left. It had somehow drifted to the right and no longer included a view of the flux instruments.

[Joe] UC Davis was busy in the fields taking arm loads of rice samples.

7500 readings:
CO2 = 386 ppm (same after cleaning)
H2O = 440 mmol m-3 (same after cleaning)
signal strength = 86.4% (86.9% after cleaning)
t = 22.8 C
p = 101.7 kPa
sos = 347.0 m s-1

7700 readings:
CH4 = 1.95 ppm (same after cleaning)
RSSI = 37% (73% after cleaning)
Reservoir was full.

MET data looked good considering ground sensors were coiled under the tower.

1 photos found

TW_autocam_20130919_1715.jpg ( 2013-09-19 17:15:02 ) Full size: 1920x1440
Start of rice harvest