Field Notes

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Bouldin Alfalfa: 2020-12-18 15:15:00 (DOY 353)
Author: Joe Verfaillie
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Summary: Installed the experimental NFD sensors, swapped FD chambers, added spikes to Mark I Arable, straightened up Planet Labs Arable sensors that were perturbed by the sheep.

Bouldin Alfalfa
2020-12-18

I arrived at about 15:15. It was a mild and calm evening. Sheep are grazing around our tower but mostly to the south. I was able to drive up to almost our usual parking area before having to get out and cross the sheep fence.

This was a quick stop to install the experimental NFD sensors. I put FM20200000 and FM20200001 (60cn from 00) near the northwest corner of the scaffolding, FM2020001 in the middle (150cm from 00) and FM20200003 just outside the scaffolding to the southeast (270cm from 00). They all seemed to connect to the computer and should be collecting data. I used the wider and shorter collars. The surface of the ground was very hard and kind of fibrous making it difficult to seat the collars well. For FM20200003 outside the scaffolding I use the claw of the hammer to break through the surface. Even though it had rained a couple days ago the soil at the surface was nearly dry and kind of chalky.

I also swapped the FD chamber â€“ sn FD20180047 came off and sn FD20160001 went on. I forgot to check the time and sample frequency â€“ itâ€™s probably set to UTC-4 and 10min samples. Need to fix this next time (UTC-8 and 5min samples). The FD chamber removed has a high temperature start up problem and was on a relay to restart it every night. I also remove the relay but did not change the CR1000 program.

I added some strap on bird spikes to the Mark I Arable.

I think the sheep had pushed over the southern pair of Planet Labs Arables and the herders had put it back up. I broke a screw driver trying turn the base more into the ground. I leveled the post, realigned the sensors to south and pointed one solar panel east and one west. I was thinking that would give me both early sun and late sun, but the panels are independent of each other. These two Arables had green status lights. The two northern ones also looked slightly perturbed but not as much as the southern ones. I leveled and realigned them. These two had red (amber?) status lights. I need to check the data to see if they are still reporting.

I left at about 16:15

Next Mowing: 2021-01-12

2 photos found

20201218BA_NFDsInstalled.jpg ( 2020-12-18 00:00:00 ) Full size: 1920x988
Experimental NFDs installed