Field Notes

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Other sites visited today: Vaira | Bouldin Corn
Phenocam link: Searching...

Tonzi: 2024-07-09 08:55:00 (DOY 191)
Author: Daphne Szutu
Others: Mike

Summary: Regular data collection/cleaning, all seems well, road detours, accidentally locked Rob in--fixed

2024-07-09
Tonzi

Mike and I arrived at 8:55 PST (9:55 PDT). It was warm and sunny with a slight breeze. This is a routine visit to download data while Joe is in Japan. A section of Carbondale Rd (between Forest Home Rd and Irish Hill Rd) was closed for bridge repair, so we went another 3 miles east along CA-16 and turned right onto Carbondale Rd. Then we can get to Irish Hill Rd from the east.

At Vaira, there are two locks next to each other on the chain, so I had emphasized to Mike to lock our lock to the other lock, NOT to the end of the chain. Here at Tonzi, there are two locks on the chain, although they are separated by two chain links. After we entered, Mike locked the two locks to each other, bypassing the two chain links entirely. Around noon Rob (I think) came by on his ATV to ask for the combo on our lock. Mike locking the two locks together (bypassing the two chain links) made the chain so tight that Rob wasn’t able to open his own lock. I gave him the combo and apologized for locking him in accidentally.

Rob said the cows were moved off this year in May instead of the usual June. The cows are gathered together and weighed, and some are brought to market. The remaining cows are either moved into the mountains, or a place in Stockton by the river. They’ll bring the cows back in November or December.

Rob also mentioned that he noticed many more grasshoppers than usual this year. He says there’s been year-round mountain lions recently (they used to just migrate through). The mountain lions are eating the turkeys, and the turkeys used to keep the grasshoppers down.

We started with collecting the manual soil moisture, well (including the GlobalWater logger at the Road well), and DBH data. Mike took notes. Several MoisturePoint probes seem to have issues with their top 1 or 2 measurements: Under, 3, 2, 1, Tower. They sometimes skip the measurement (and display the third measurement immediately), or display a suspicious 39.9 or 0.1 value.

We climbed the tower and I downloaded Tower GHG and phenocam data. There was a nice breeze on top, although the air was not clear enough to see Mt. Diablo. I downloaded data from the LattePanda, Floor GHG, and the Floor well CR2000. I cleaned the Floor 7500 and the SS increase from 94 to 96.

At the LattePanda, the towermet and cr6co2prof dataloggers had red statuses in the status monitor (last updated the previous night I think). They both updated immediately after I left-clicked on each one and selected “Reset Device.” Their statuses changed back to green.

I swapped the three zcam cards and turned them on briefly to make sure they were working. I downloaded the two FD chambers and cleared their memories.

Around 12:20 PST we did the leaf water potential measurements, using 2 twigs each from Tree 102, Tree 251, and Liu Kang’s tree. It was a mix of leaves in the sun vs. shade, and leaves at face level vs higher up in the canopy.

Tree 102:
34 psi (4 leaves from low)
33.5 psi (2 leaves from higher up)
Tree 251:
28.5 psi (5 leaves from high up, half sun)
30 psi (5 leaves from down low, half sun)
Tree 92 (Liu Kang’s tree):
38.5 psi (11 leaves, sun)
29 psi (5 leaves, shade)

We left at 13:15 PST (14:15 PDT). I closed all of the electric fences and left the electricity off since the cows are not around anymore and to decrease the fire risk.

I checked that the main Tonzi gate was locked correctly before we continued onto Bouldin Island.

A section of Twin Cities Road between Hwy 99 and I-5 is closed until the end of the month, so we ended up taking Lincoln Way/Lower Sacramento Road and Peltier Road from Galt to Hwy 5. They were repaving Peltier Road so there was some slowdown from construction traffic.

Field Data

No tank data

No TZ Well data found

No TZ Moisture Point data found

No VR Moisture Point data found

No TZ grass heigth found

No VR grass heigth found

No TZ Tree DBH found

No water potential data found

No TZ Grass Biomass data found

No TZ OakLeaves Biomass data found

No TZ PineNeedles Biomass data found

2 photos found

20240709TZ_Mike.jpg ( 2024-07-09 13:40:40 ) Full size: 1920x1440
Mike on his way to collect leaves from Liu Kang's tree for leaf water potential measurements