Field Notes

<--2022-02-09 13:30:00 | 2022-03-10 12:15:00-->
Other sites visited today: Vaira

Tonzi: 2022-02-23 12:30:00 (DOY 54)
Author: Joe Verfaillie
Others:

Summary: Few trees have leaves, Checked Tower guy wires, replaced z-cam 1 clock battery, added solar charged lithium batteries to Road Well and IRT CR1000, Bad power line to Floor HMP fan patched, checked SHF and Theta serial numbers

Tonzi
2022-02-23

I arrived at about 12:30 PST. It was clear and sunny but cold with a colder wind from the west. I counted maybe ten trees between the gate and the Tonzi house that already have leaves. The mutant tree near the Tonzi house is almost completely leafed out. I didn’t see any trees near the tower with leaves yet. The road and ground surface are dry and hard.

At the tower I checked the guy wire tensions. This is something we should do once or twice a year but not something I have ever done. The manual says the guy wires should all be 600lbs +-25 lbs. There are two tensiometers in the lab that came with the tower and are supposed to be calibrated for its guy wires. However one tensiometer is labeled “ok” and the other “bad?”. I fixed a loose screw on the “bad” one but it still reads about 150 lbs less than the “ok” one. You really need two working tensiometers and two people to adjust the guy wires because as you work on one wire it affects the opposite guy wire. Never the less I gave it a try:

Northeast anchor:
Upper SE: 600, Upper NW: 560, Mid: 625, Bottom: 675
Northwest anchor:
Upper NE: 400, Upper SW: 560, Mid: 510, Bottom: 310
Southwest anchor:
Upper SE: 560, Upper NE: 650, Mid: 510, Bottom: 575
Southeast anchor:
Upper NE: 475, Upper SW: 330, Mid: 475, Bottom: 450

I decided to try to tighten up the northwest and southeast lines as these were the farthest out of spec and opposite each other. Some of the excess cable is fed through the turnbuckles and fittings to prevent movement (I think). Each turnbuckle also has locking nuts on either end. Turnbuckles by design have right hand treads on one end and left hand threads on the other. I was careful with the first nut twisting it in both directions to see which one it was. The upper nut was right hand treaded and the lower nut was left hand threaded. Then I assumed all the other turnbuckles were the same and was unable to get the other nuts loose. By chance I turned a nut the “wrong” way and discovered that the turnbuckles are not all installed in the same orientation. Rather the end with a right hand thread is marked with a “K” and the end with a left and thread is marked with an “L”. Once I figured that out, the nuts were much easier to get loose.

I worked back and forth on the southeast and northwest guy wire tightening and loosening until they were all around 600 lbs. It could still use some fine tuning with two people and two working tensiometers.

I collected the Tower flux, met and camera data, the Floor flux and met data, the FD data and the well data. I measured DBH, and the wells. I serviced the z-cams. I replaced the clock battery in z-cam 1.

The Tower 7500: 416.7ppm CO2, 167.4mmol/m3 H2O, 99.2kPa, 11.3C, 100.1SS
The Floor 7500: 414.4ppm CO2, 237.8mmol/m3 H2O, 99.4kPa, 12.8C, 105.8SS

The IRT CR1000 has been losing overnight data due to a weak battery and we lose data from the Road well when its battery pack runs out. Today I added a solar panel to the Road Well and swapped out the SLA battery and charger at the IRT CR1000 for a DC-DC converter and a lithium power pack. The lithium power pack for the IRT CR1000 might be too small (3Ah?) and the power pack at the well was only half charged. We will see how they do and I’ll order some more lithium power packs.

The Floor HMP fan was not working. I swapped it out with a new fan but the new one didn’t work either. Then I found a splice in the cable on the ground that had all rotted away and another spot near the screw terminal where the insulation was rotted too. I cut out the bad parts and spliced it back together with screw terminals but is needs a replacement wire next time and some conduit.

I checked on the serial numbers of the Theta probes and the SHF plates:
Theta probes
#1 sn 31/085
#2 sn 31/100
#3 sn 31/092
#4 sn 31/016
#5 sn 31/033
#6 – replaced recently, no label on the cable
#7 sn 54/004

Soil Heat Flux Plates:
#1 sn 000138
#2 Homemade cable and label – the label is smeared to unreadable
#3 sn 000140
#4 sn 000068
#5 sn 000144

I left at about 17:20

Field Data

No tank data

Well Depth

Date	Location	Depth (feet)
2022-02-23	VR_well	52.3
2022-02-23	VR_pond	19.84
2022-02-23	TZ_floor	26.05
2022-02-23	TZ_road	35.25
2022-02-23	TZ_tower	29.45

mode = both
Moisture Point Probes TZ
Array ( [0] => Tower [1] => Floor_South [2] => Soil_Transect_4 [3] => Soil_Transect_3 [4] => Soil_Transect_2 [5] => Soil_Transect_1 [6] => SoilCO2_West_A [7] => SoilCO2_West_B [8] => SoilCO2_West_C )

Date	DOY	Rep	Depth	Tower	Floor_South	Soil_Transect_4	Soil_Transect_3	Soil_Transect_2	Soil_Transect_1	SoilCO2_West_A	SoilCO2_West_B	SoilCO2_West_C	Avg	Spacial Count	Measurement Count
2022-02-23	54	0	0-15cm	25.8	12.7	8	14.4	15.6	15	21.4	21.2	14.4
2022-02-23	54	0	15-30cm	30.1	13.9	16.1	26.1	27.1	13.6	20.6	20.3	22.2
2022-02-23	54	0	30-45cm	31.3	34.3	19.8	26.2	39.6	29.6	29	28.5	30.4
2022-02-23	54	0	45-60cm	39.7	52.3	25.4	37.1	44.8	29.4	39.1	40.5	44.8
2022-02-23	54	1	0-15cm	26.4	14.5	8.3	14.4	16.2	14.7		18.2	13.2
2022-02-23	54	1	15-30cm	30.1	17.9	16.1	26.5	26.8	13		11.8	22.2
2022-02-23	54	1	30-45cm	30.1	33.8	19.3	26.2	39.6	29.9		28.5	30.1
2022-02-23	54	1	45-60cm	40.8	50.3	25.1	35.4	46.3	29.4		43.1	46.6
2022-02-23	54	2	0-15cm								13.2
2022-02-23	54	2	15-30cm								10.6
2022-02-23	54	2	30-45cm								29.3
2022-02-23	54	2	45-60cm								42.5
2022-02-23	54	Avg	0-15cm	26.1	13.6	8.15	14.4	15.9	14.85	21.4	17.53	13.8	16.19	9	18
2022-02-23	54	Avg	15-30cm	30.1	15.9	16.1	26.3	26.95	13.3	20.6	14.23	22.2	20.63	9	18
2022-02-23	54	Avg	30-45cm	30.7	34.05	19.55	26.2	39.6	29.75	29	28.77	30.25	29.76	9	18
2022-02-23	54	Avg	45-60cm	40.25	51.3	25.25	36.25	45.55	29.4	39.1	42.03	45.7	39.43	9	18

No VR Moisture Point data found

No TZ grass heigth found

No VR grass heigth found

Tree DBH

Date	Tag#	Reading (mm)
2022-02-23	1	17.3
2022-02-23	102	15.6
2022-02-23	2	15.4
2022-02-23	245	3.9
2022-02-23	3	20.1
2022-02-23	4	16.0
2022-02-23	5	8.6
2022-02-23	6	20.2
2022-02-23	7	9.6
2022-02-23	72	12.9
2022-02-23	79	13.0