Field Notes

<--2016-02-11 11:55:00 | 2016-03-02 09:00:00-->
Other sites visited today: Twitchell Rice | East End | West Pond | Mayberry
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Twitchell Alfalfa: 2016-02-25 12:30:00 (DOY 56)
Author: Elke Eichelmann
Others: Joe Verfaillie

Summary: Sheep at the tower. Chewed on everything. Lots of damage, but EC system still working.

We got here around 12:30pm. There are sheep in the field around the tower, but the net radiation and soil sensors are outside of the pen. The field a little further west of the tower (upwind) looked like it had been aerated.
Although the tower was apparently originally fenced off as well, the sheep had taken down the fence and were all over our stuff, climbing on the solar panels, the boards, etc. They chewed on EVERYTHINGâ€¦
Most soil sensors (Thermocouples, SHFPs, etc,) seem to have been chewed through. Camera lost power, so did the soil CO2 and Net radiation dataloggers. The EC system was surprisingly almost entirely intact and still had power. They had chewed on the Licor temperature sensor though.
The fan for the HMP also lost power and did not work.
The enclosure for the batteries was missing the lid. The sheep had started to chew off some of the Styrofoam insulation around the batteries.
We were not able to collect data from the Net radiation and Soil CO2 dataloggers, since they didnâ€™t have power.
Clipped the alfalfa around the net radiometer and soil respiration instruments.
Restored fencing around the tower. Hopefully will holdâ€¦
When we tried to swap the card for the Met data, the light on the datalogger stayed solid orange after the new card was put in. It might not have been properly formatted. We did not have another replacement card, so we left it running without a card.
LI7500 readings: CO2 17.099 mmol/m3, H2O 512.8 mmol/m3, SS: 96.45, T -240, P: 101.87.
The CO2 and H2O readings are in mmol/m3 since the T sensor was not working at first. Joe took it off and wiggled it around a little bit. After that the T reading was 22.6. So it seemed to be working again, but might not be stable. Needs to be replaced.
Collected USB GHG data, but we forgot to collect the camera card pictures. Camera is not taking pictures at the moment anyways since it does not have power.
We did not restore power to the soil CO2 and net radiation dataloggers, camera, and HMP fan. We did also not replace or splice any of the damaged TC and soil sensor wires. This needs to be done soon.

Veg Height (cm): Visual estimate - Just eaten (sheep in field)
5, avg = 5, stdev = N/A

4 photos found

20160225TA_GeeseAndSheep_tn.jpg ( 2016-02-25 10:09:19 ) Full size: 1920x1440
Snow geese on alfalfa field