Field Notes

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Other sites visited today: Mayberry | Bouldin Corn | Hill Slough
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Bouldin Alfalfa: 2021-06-16 10:50:00 (DOY 167)
Author: Joe Verfaillie
Others: Daphne

Summary: Removed three Arable units, Installed IRT surface renewal sensors, Brought in box and power line from Tyler's alfalfa chamber site

Bouldin Alfalfa
2021-06-16

Daphne and I arrived at 10:50. It was clear sunny and hot with a very light breeze. The alfalfa is about knee high in most spots but a little patchy in tractor paths. This is a maintenance trip.

Arable asked for us to remove three of the Planet Labs Mark IIs and gave us serial numbers 3800, 3751 and 3789. However all of these units were swapped out previously so we removed their corresponding replacements. From the north location sn C006322 and sn C006282 were removed along with the solar panels, the mounting post and anchor. From the south location sn C003751 was removed with its solar panel and the cross arm. The remaining Mark (3947) was moved directly on top of the post.

We checked the eddy sensors.
The 7500 read: 402ppm CO2, 593mmol/m3 H2O, 30.6C, 101.5kPa, 99.5SS
The 7700 read: 1.94ppm CH4, 37RSSI â€“ 91 after cleaning

The other project today was to install two Apogee IRT sensors for a surface renewal experiment by Kevin Tu. IRT sn 1071 went on the southeast corner of the scaffolding directly below the radiation boom at 2.44m agl. It is pointed down at a 45 degree angle at a relatively infrequently disturbed patch of alfalfa on the east side of the tower scaffolding. It might get some afternoon shadows. IRT sn 1635 is mounted on the southwest corner of the scaffolding directly under the tipping bucket at 2.52m agl. It is pointed down at a 45 degree angle and should see an undisturbed and un-shadowed patch of alfalfa. The data logger box with CR1000X sn 1130 and charge controller sn 1688 is in the middle of the north frame of the scaffolding. We had a couple of problems when we hooked this up. First the charge controller popped the 5A breaker at the solar panels a couple of times. We ended up bypassing the charge controller and connecting the CR1000X directly to our regulated 12VDC bus. Then we noticed that the micro-SD card did not seem to be working â€“ activity light continuously lit. We put the card in the computer and it said it was not formatted. We formatted it in FAT32 and reinserted it in the data logger and all seemed well.

On the way out we picked up the old wooden box that Tyler had been using for is alfalfa chambers. We manually pushed the whole box into the back of the truck. Then we tried to remove the power line. Half of it pull out of the ground easily the rest was a struggle. Daphne found the plug inside the workshop, cut it off and got that end loose as well. It took some shovel work and both of us to heave-ho to get last couple of meters out of the ground.

We left at about 12:20

Next Mowing: 2021-06-25

0 photos found

7 sets found

5 BA_flux graphs found