Field Notes

<--2019-06-20 10:40:00 | 2019-07-26 07:30:00-->
Other sites visited today: Bouldin Alfalfa
Phenocam link: Searching...

Bouldin Corn: 2019-07-11 07:30:00 (DOY 192)
Author: Joe Verfaillie
Others: Camilo, Katrina

Summary: LI-6400 A-Ci curves, crop duster almost sprayed us. Corn head high, knocked down weeds.

Bouldin Corn
2019-07-11

Camilo, Katrina and I arrive at about 7:30. It was clear sunny and warm with a nice breeze. The corn is now about head high. There was a crop duster working in the area. At first it was a long way off â€“ maybe on Staten Island. But it got closer and closer finally making two passes directly over us. First it came in from the east spraying the south edge of the field to the east. It turned off the spray as it passed over us and turned it back on over our field. Then it made a second pass in the opposite direction with a similar spray pattern. I donâ€™t think any of the spray got directly on us or the tower but we could smell it in the air. We packed up and left, but didnâ€™t see the crop duster much after that. It looked like it was hitting very small patches here and there.

Camilo and Katrina set up and starting doing A-Ci curves with the LI-6400 on corn leaves. Things went relatively well until a loose connection cause a temperature reading to fail and then the crop duster chased us off. They ended up with three full A-Ci curves.

I collected the data.
The 7500 read: 404.5ppm CO2, 688.5mmol/m3 H2O, 20.7C, 101.0kPa, 96.4SS â€“ 98.3 after cleaning
The 7700 read: 1.91ppm CH4, 59.5RSSI â€“ 1.88ppm CH4, 89.5RSSI after cleaning
The wash reservoir was nearly full. The 7700 internal humidity was 25% - new desiccant needed soon.

I downloaded the images from the pi-cams and cleared their archives. There was about 1.5GB of images on each.

I cleaned the phenocam window inside and out â€“ camera FOV might change slightly. I cleaned the other instruments â€“ there was a thin layer of dust on most things.

There were more weeds in the corn near the tower than further out. I pulled out a bunch of weeds in the rows of corn near the tower including some near the pi-cams. I also knocked down a bunch of weeds between the tower and the road. I hope to move the tower back next to the power post at harvest.

I measured instrument locations. And planted some watermelon seeds under the tower.

I tried to do LAI but was still figuring out the instructions when the crop duster chased us off. We came back about 2pm and measured LAI. The last six to nine readings are near the pi-cams.

Veg Height (cm): Tape measure from ground to top of plant
150, 175, 175, 175, 150, avg = 165, stdev = 13.69

2 photos found

20190711BC_LI6400Measurements.jpg ( 2019-07-11 00:00:00 ) Full size: 1440x1920
Camilo and Katrina do A-Ci curves