Field Notes

Bouldin Alfalfa: 2021-10-21 17:20:00 (DOY 294)
Author: Daphne Szutu
Others: Joe

Summary: Regular data collection/cleaning, alfalfa harvested and mostly removed, installed rad cal kit, trimmed alfalfa under towers

2021-10-21
Bouldin Alfalfa

Joe and I arrived at 17:20 to the bouncer tower. It was overcast, cool, and breezy. It has been lightly raining on and off over the past few days; this weekend we are will have an atmospheric river with an expected 12-20 cm rain, wow!

The alfalfa had been mowed and mostly baled/removed, but there were still bales on the western half of the field. We could see some long, stringy, dry alfalfa where it had not been properly mowed because we had driven the truck across the field to the bouncer tower.

At the bouncer tower, Joe trimmed the alfalfa under the tower and I downloaded the bouncer data by swapping the microSD card and using CardConvert to convert the fast data to TOB1 and the slow data to TOA5.

We arrived at the main tower at 17:35. I downloaded met, camera, and USB GHG data. At least, I thought I downloaded camera dataâ€”the card I brought back to the lab was empty, so I donâ€™t know if I forgot to swap the CF card or if the CF card was empty. Joe will help me check this site next week during his Tonzi trip.

I downloaded the FD data and cleared its memory. I downloaded the IRT data by swapping the microSD card and using CardConvert to convert the fast data to TOB1 and the slow data to TOA5. I donâ€™t remember the wash reservoir level, but we refilled it.

The undercanopy PAR sensor looked clean and level after mowing.

We tested the tipping bucket sn 65560-615. I cleaned out the tippers, which were pretty clean. The screen and funnel had a little dried bird poop in it that I was able to shake out. We dripped 240ml of water through the bucket using a peristaltic pump powered with a lithium battery. This should result in 50 tips in about 20 minutes. We got 54 tips. We turned its sets crews 1.5 turns CCW. I will test it again at the next visit to see if the adjustment was sufficient.

Joe installed the rad cal kit here on the rad boom. Sensors installed:
CR1000 sn 23865
CNR4 sn 121038
PAR sn 060831
NDVI in sn 1049
NDVI out sn 1050

We trimmed the alfalfa under the tower and under the PL Arable post.

LI-7500 readings:
CO2 400ppm
H2O 100ppm
T 20.6C
P 101.6kPa
SS 96--> 100 after cleaning
LI7700 readings:
CH4 1.7
RSSI 0--> 82 after cleaning

We saw the nice sunset while we were finishing up and left at 18:30 PDT.

Next Mowing: 2021-11-19

3 photos found

20211021BA_DrivingConsequences.jpg ( 2021-10-21 17:33:06 ) Full size: 1920x1440
Stringy, unmowed alfalfa are the consequences of driving across the field to the bouncer tower when the alfalfa was tall.