Field Notes

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Other sites visited today: Hill Slough | Bouldin Alfalfa | Mayberry
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Bouldin Corn: 2022-05-27 13:30:00 (DOY 147)
Author: Joe Verfaillie
Others: Carlos

Summary: Corn sprouted, Moved tower to edge of field, moved ground sensors into the field, installed zenith pi-cams, Card module for camera images dead - removed, car crashes blocked the roads

Bouldin Corn
2022-05-27

Carlos and I arrived at about 13:30 PDT. The corn is up and Tyler has nine chambers in the field. It was clear and sunny and super windy.

We were planning to put the ground sensors back in the ground but realized we need to move the tower to the edge of the field to make best use of the length of the ground sensor cables. So we dug up the anchors, scooted the tower about two meters to the west, squared, leveled and tied it back down. We didn’t have a post pounder so the two T-posts need more pounding next time, but the two screw anchors are solid. The tower also rotated a little to match the edge of the field and I did not measure the new sonic heading.

While Carlos worked on moving the ground sensors into the field I collected data. I collected the GHG and met data. I forgot to get the IRT data. I unplugged the Purple Air and wired the power line for the two upward looking picams (sn RPI0W-001 and sn RPI0W-002) into the existing 5V supply for the Purple Air. I moved the files off the Purple Air micro SD card and put the card back before repowering the Purple Air. The blue and green lights blinked initially but then stayed off. I cycled the power a second time and got the same blink then off. I could not make a serial connection to the FD chamber, but it did seem to have power as the pump was running after we moved it into the field. The cameras were also running and I could connect to them.

I had real trouble with the camera card. When I put in the new card the activity light lit for a few seconds then went out, but the CR1000 said there was no card. I did not get the green light on pushing eject. I tried cycling the CR1000 power, but then the program didn’t seem to run – the multiplexor didn’t start to click. I removed the card from the CR1000 and cycled its power again and the multiplexor was running. I moved the files off the old card, and put in the slot. The activity light stayed on for many minutes. Both cards worked fine in the laptop. I decided the NL115 interface sn 13056 is bad. I brought it in for testing. I think there is one more in the lab, but we can’t buy these any more. So no camera images in a kind of critical growth period.

Carlos buried the Campbell soil moisture sensors vertically at -30 to -42cm, sn 17128 to the southwest, sn 17133 straight to the west and sn 17129 to the northwest.

I move the Planet Labs Arable from the edge of the field north of the tower to the south edge of Tyler’s soil chamber plot west of the tower. It is still at about 2m of height. It has a red light for its sensor indicator.

Two of the HMP60 solar shield bolts were loose. Maybe we jiggled them loose in moving the tower. Carlos screwed them back in.

Carlos also measured the corn height. I think he was pressing the leaves against the tap measure so maybe getting a little higher than I would. It was very windy so hard to say what their height was as they bent in the wind. We also need to measure plants per meter and row separation next time.

We left at about 16:45 PDT. There was a car wreck with a big rig car carrier and some other vehicles on Hwy 12 just east of the turnoff for the back door to Twitchell that had the highway completely closed. There is a side road along the fields north of the highway there that we nearly got through but just ahead of us someone rolled a huge RV off the road into a field and that road was shut down too while an ambulance took someone away. We spent about an hour waiting for the road to open.

Veg Height (cm): Tape measure from ground to top of plant - First measurements after sprouting, very windy
26, 37, 29, 25, 29, 24, 23, 26, 25, 27, 14, 25, 25, 26, 22, avg = 25.5, stdev = 4.73

2 photos found

20220527BC_RoadClosed.jpg ( 2022-05-27 17:30:25 ) Full size: 1440x1920
Both Hwy 12 and the field road to the north were closed for about