Field Notes

Bouldin Alfalfa: 2022-03-15 11:15:00 (DOY 74)
Author: Daphne Szutu
Others: Robert

Summary: Regular data collection/cleaning, rained overnight, mux data ok, ants in the datalogger ethernet switch, changed eddy clock +1min, veg height, single car accident on east end of island

2022-03-15
Bouldin Alfalfa

Robert and I arrived at 11:15 PDT. It was mostly overcast and mild with a small breeze. It had rained about <0.5cm last night and early this morning. 0.5-1cm more rain is forecast for Saturday.

The alfalfa is overall looking tattered with occasional brown patches. Maybe the weight of the overnight rain was weighing the plants down. There are more weeds under the tower, mostly thistles and grasses. I pulled most of them.

I downloaded met, camera, and USB GHG data. The mux data look ok this time, so tightening the 1H/1L ports on the datalogger helped I think. Seems like I need to check the screws here every few months.

There were some ants in the datalogger box and concentrated around the ethernet switch because they were stashing eggs in one of the empty ports. We tried to shoo them out of the switch and the box as best as we could, but there seem to be some ants stuck in the switch (maybe the canned air blew them deeper into the switch rather than out). Since we don't need to ethernet switch to collect data, we brought it back to the lab to give the ants more time to clear out. I connected the phenocam ethernet cable directly to the CR1000 card reader (there were blinky lights on the card reader ethernet port).

I changed the eddy clock from 10:22 to 10:23 to match the laptop time and restarted USB logging afterwards.

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.

Robert took veg height measurements and cleaned flux and rad sensors. We topped off the wash reservoir. We skipped spectral measurements because it was mostly overcast.

LI-7500 readings:
CO2 441ppm
H2O 660ppm
T 18.8C
P 103.1Pa
SS 101 --> 103 after cleaning
LI7700 readings:
CH4 2.1ppm
RSSI 46 --> 86 after cleaning

We left at 11:45 PDT. By our exit gate, a Prius had crashed into the ditch just where the bridge guardrail ends. Emergency personnel were on the scene. Robert hypothesized the driver had hit the median and then overcorrected and gone off the road.

Next Mowing: 2022-03-21

0 photos found

7 sets found

5 BA_flux graphs found