Field Notes

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Tonzi: 2024-02-09 12:50:00 (DOY 40)
Author: Joe Verfaillie
Others: Jackie

Summary: Jackie visiting from Keenan Lab, Cows destroyed things again, 5 days missing from Tower due to chewed wire shorting and popping breaker, FDs knocked over, Floor met SHF cables bad, CO2 profile down for calibration/repair

Tonzi
2024-02-09

I arrived at about 12:50 with Jackie Reu from the Keenan Lab. Jackie is a new grad student this fall, likes field work, is interested in nutrient cycling but not sure what to pursue as a thesis. It was a lovely sunny but cool day fresh after a week or so of rain. Water, water everywhere, but I didn’t notice the pond looking a lot fuller. Maybe I was concentrating on getting through the puddles on the road. The AWD SUV managed just fine though. There are lots of branches down and maybe another tree or two. Must have been a strong storm out here.

Cows have destroyed everything again. The electric fences around the Tower and the soil CO2 were both destroyed. Both FD chambers were on their sides but still running. A cow chewed the cable for the lowest GMP343 CO2 profile probe and shorted out the Tower power. This popped a breaker and after removing the chewed wire, resetting the breaker restored power but there are about five missing days of data.

I showed Jackie around and got her set doing the soil moisture, the well depths and fixing cow fences. Thanks Jackie!

I collected the Floor flux and well data. There was a small branch stuck on the sonic and 7500. The bird spikes on the 7500 are broken. I also replaced the cable to zcam3 that cows chewed and I spliced last time. The new line is in conduit most of the distance.
The Floor 7500 read: 429.9ppm CO2, 358.3mmol/m3 H2O, 12.8C, 99.5kPa, 99.3SS

I fixed the FD chambers and collected their data. I read the dendrometers and collected the Road well data. I was hoping to set the clocks on the point dendrometers but seems I still need a driver to talk to them. I removed the solar power connectors so that I can splice them to left over Arable solar panels in the lab. At tree Three the sensor was loose and seemed to be twisted out of its original location. I twisted it back and tightened the nuts – we need lock washers on these. There will be a jump in its readings.

I collect the photos from Zcam2 and Zcam3. The box for Zcam1 is dry and must have been thoroughly tested by the storms. Time to get a camera back in there.

After restoring power to the tower I collected the camera and flux data.
The Tower 7500 read: 433.3ppm CO2, 317.6mmol/m3 H2O, 11.0C, 99.3kPa, 99.4SS
We cleaned the radiometers, the BF3 has a little condensation inside and needs new desiccant.

The CO2 profile system was acting funny even before the cow chewed its cable. The two remaining CO2 probes were not reading correctly. I decided to bring in all the probes to test and calibrate in the lab. I removed:
0.35m sn N2220007
1.8m sn N2210010
6m sn N2210009

The cows also messed with cables around the Floor met station. One SHF cable is broken (#5 I think). However the insulation on all of the SHF cables has rotted and pretty much fallen off. New wire will need to be spliced on all of them. I can probably do it in the field and not have to dig them all up.

We left at about 16:20. Beautiful sunset on the way home.

Field Data

No tank data

Well Depth

Date	Location	Depth (feet)
2024-02-09	VR_well	57.1
2024-02-09	TZ_floor	27.6
2024-02-09	TZ_road	35.1
2024-02-09	TZ_tower	31.7

No TZ Moisture Point data found

No VR Moisture Point data found

No TZ grass heigth found

No VR grass heigth found

Tree DBH

Date	Tag#	Reading (mm)
2024-02-09	1	20.5
2024-02-09	102	10.4
2024-02-09	2	16.1
2024-02-09	245	10.7
2024-02-09	3	7.2
2024-02-09	4	9.1
2024-02-09	5	17.9
2024-02-09	6	7.9
2024-02-09	7	15.3
2024-02-09	72	7.0
2024-02-09	79	7.1