Field Notes

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Other sites visited today: Hill Slough | Bouldin Corn
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Bouldin Alfalfa: 2022-10-18 11:45:00 (DOY 291)
Author: Daphne Szutu
Others: Dennis, Carlos, Eric

Summary: Regular data collection/cleaning, sleepy wasps and mosquitoes, manual IRT measurements, veg height, spectral, measured ditch depth, moved LWin/SHF2 to new mux blocks, swapped out Arables on tower, soil samples for soil moisture

2022-10-18
Bouldin Alfalfa

Dennis, Carlos, Eric (Iryna’s student) and I arrived at 11:45 PDT. It was calm, overcast, and hazy, and I could smell whiffs of smoke. Nearby PurpleAir sensor on the public map had AQI of 80-90. There were also plenty of mosquitoes around. Most of the unsealed boxes (CR1000 ADEX, Bouncer, Edge) had clumps of sleepy wasps.

The alfalfa was green and flowering, but still sparser than earlier in the year. The original plan was to remove the equipment in early November but today Dennis and Carlos discussed keeping the advection equipment up longer given that the corn is now harvested and the alfalfa is becoming slightly more lush than the summer. TBD.

Carlos and Eric got started right away taking manual IRT measurements across the field. Dennis took spectral measurements and veg height. I worked on collecting all of the usual data at the main tower: met, cam USB GHG, FD, and IRT. I also downloaded the 10sec T/RH data and the CR1000 ADEX data and used CardConvert to check quickly that their data looked reasonable. I changed the eddy clock +1min from 10:53:20 to 10:54:20 to match the laptop time and restarted logging. I also changed the phenocam clock +3min from 12:00 to 12:03 PST to match the laptop time.

I checked the wiring on LWin and SHF2 because LWin has had consistent spikes and SHF2 has had consistent daily gaps, mostly overnight and into the morning for some reason. The wiring on both seem secure and they are on separate mux blocks. I decided to move both to new mux channels to see if that would fix the problem. SHF2 was moved from mux channel 2 to 13. LWin was moved from mux channel 7 to 14. I updated the CR1000 program to reflect the new wiring and checked that the real-time data looked ok. Next time I’ll add some jumper wires to the newly empty channels to zero them out.

I removed the two Arables from the tower because their T/RH sensors were bad. I used the same mounts to add two new Arable Mark IIs from Loreli. I booted up the new Arables and both seemed to be running with four green status lights on top.
West position: sn C006164 came off, sn C013433 went on
East position: sn C003240 came off, sn C013311 went on

Carlos took a soil sample (0-5cm) with the slide hammer for soil moisture.

The ditch east of the tower was dry and Dennis and Carlos made some measurements. Carlos measured 1.5-1.75m from bottom of the dry ditch to the field surface, so they concluded the water table was lower than 1.5m deep. There was some water in the main ditch north of our field; at a glance, it looked deeper than 2m from the field surface.

The 7500 read: 420ppm CO2, 750mmol/m3 H2O, 22.2C, 101.9kPa, 93SS – 100.8 after cleaning.

At 13:10 PDT, Eric headed home and Dennis, Carlos, and I moved on to the remaining towers.

Bouncer Tower

Dennis, Carlos, and I arrived at 13:12 PDT. It was overcast, muggy, and mosquitoes still prevailed. Carlos and I downloaded all the data from the CR23X, CR6, and LicorGHG. I changed the eddy clock +1min around 12:19 PST and restarted logging afterwards. Carlos took a soil samples (0-5cm) for soil moisture. We did not have the ladder today so we did not clean sensors.
The 7500 read: 412ppm CO2, 608mmol/m3 H2O, 25.9C, 101.8kPa, 95SS – did not clean.

Edge Tower

Dennis, Carlos, and I arrived at 13:38 PDT. I downloaded all the data from the CR23X, CR6, and LicorGHG. I changed the eddy clock +30sec and restarted logging afterwards. Carlos took a soil samples (0-5cm) for soil moisture. We did not have the ladder today so we did not clean sensors.
The 7500 read: 409ppm CO2, 695mol/m3 H2O, 27.3, 101.8kPa, 98SS – did not clean.

We left around 14:00 PDT.

Next Mowing: 2022-10-27

Veg Height (cm): Tape measure from ground to top of plant
44, 40, 35, 40, 58, 42, 26, 57, 37, 54, 34, 41, 45, 10, 47, 22, 30, 22, 15, 20, 32, avg = 35.8, stdev = 13.28

0 photos found

7 sets found

4 BA_flux graphs found