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Posts from the ‘Ecology’ Category

Feb 4

Predicting the Stability of Rangeland Productivity to Climate Change

Dr. Lauren Hallett, researcher at  the University of California, Berkeley, recently conducted a study testing the importance of compensatory dynamics on forage stability in an experimental field setting where she manipulated rainfall availability and species interactions. She wanted to understand how climate variability affected patterns of species tradeoff in grasslands over time and how those tradeoffs affected the stability of things like forage production across changing rainfall conditions.

field with species tradeoffs standing in the brush

Species tradeoffs could help mitigate the negative effects of climate variability on overall forage production.

Species Tradeoff

A key mechanism that can lead to stability in forage production is compensatory dynamics, in which the responses of different species  to climate fluctuations result in tradeoffs between functional groups over time. These tradeoffs could help mitigate the negative effects of climate variability on overall forage production.  Dr. Hallett comments, “In California grasslands, there’s a pattern that is part of rangeland dogma, that in dry years you have more forbs, and in wet years you have more grasses. I wondered if you could manage the system so that both forbs and grasses are present in the seed bank, able to respond to climate.  This would perhaps buffer community properties, like soil cover for erosion control and forage production in terms of biomass, from the effects of climate variability.”

Tradeoff in a green field, aerial view

In areas experiencing moderate grazing, there was a strong species tradeoff between grasses and forbs.

Manipulating Species Composition

Dr. Hallett capitalized on the pre-existing grazing manipulation that her lab had done over the previous four years.  The grazing she replicated for this study was experimentally controlled, making it easier to ensure consistency.  She built rainout shelters where she collected the water and applied it to dry versus wet plots.  She also manipulated species composition, allowing only grasses, only forbs, or a mix of the two.  These treatments allowed her to study changes in cover and biomass.

Hallett used soil moisture probes and data loggers to characterize the treatment effects of this experiment and to parameterize models that predict rangeland response to climate change.  She says, “I wanted to verify that my rainfall treatments were getting a really strong soil moisture dynamic, and I found the shelters and the irrigation worked really well.”  Along with above-ground vegetation, she collected soil cores and looked at nutrient differences in conjunction with soil moisture.  Since her field site is located within the Sierra Foothills Research and Extension Center, Dr. Hallett was able to rely on precipitation data that was already measured on-site.  

Results

Dr. Hallett found that in areas experiencing moderate grazing, there was a strong species tradeoff between grasses and forbs.  She comments, “I had a seedbank that had both functional groups represented, and those tradeoffs did a lot to stabilize cover over time.”

When Dr. Hallett replicated the experiment in an area that had a history of low grazing, she found that the proportion of forbs wasn’t as high in the seedbank.  As a consequence, there was a major loss of cover in the dry plots.  She explains, “When the grass died, there weren’t many forbs to replace it, and you ended up with a lot of bare ground. The areas that were lightly grazed had more litter, so initially, the soil moisture was okay, but as the season progressed into a dry condition and the litter decomposed, there wasn’t enough new vegetation to stabilize the soil.”  As a result, Dr. Hallett thinks in low-grazed areas it’s important to have an intermediate level of litter. She says, “You need enough litter to increase soil moisture, but not so much that it would suppress germination of the forbs because as the season progresses and gets really dry, if you don’t have forbs in the system, you lose a lot of ground cover.”

Surprises Lead to A New Study

Dr. Hallett was surprised that within her three treatments there seemed to be differences in when the functional groups were drying down the soil.  This inspired new questions, leading her to use her dissertation data to generate a larger grant through the USDA.  Her new study will perform extensive rainfall manipulations to measure the effects of early-season versus late-season dryout, and vary species within those parameters.  She says, “One of the reasons you have grass years versus forb years is the timing of rainfall.  For instance, if you have a really dry fall, you tend to have more forbs because their seedlings are more drought resistant.  Conversely, if you have a wet fall, you tend to see more grasses because you have continual germination throughout the season. So, the timing of rainfall matters in terms of what species are in the system.  We are going to look at the coupling between the species that gets selected for the fall versus what would be able to grow well in the spring, and we will be studying how that affects a whole range of things such as ground cover, above-ground production for forage, below-ground investment of different functional groups, and how these things might relate to nutrient cycling and carbon storage.”

You can read more about Dr. Hallett’s rangeland research and her current projects here.  

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Jan 7

Using The Salt Balance Approach to Measure Soil Drainage

Understanding the amount of drainage that comes out of the bottom of the root zone and infiltrates into groundwater recharge is a very difficult measurement to do well. Drain gauges do a good job of it but on a small scale. Large lysimeters do an even better job, but are extremely expensive and complex.  There is an economical alternative, however, called the salt balance approach to measuring drainage.

Soil profile underneath canola

Soil profile underneath canola

The Salt Balance Approach

Since the majority of non-fertilizer salts in the soil solution don’t get taken up by plants, this salt can be used in soil as a conservative tracer.  This means that whatever salt is applied to the soil through rainfall or irrigation water is either stored in the soil or leaches through the profile with the soil water, enabling us to use conservation of mass in our salt balance analysis. The electrical conductivity of water (ECw) is directly proportional to the salt concentration, so ECw can be used in place of salt concentration in this analysis.  If you measure the EC of the water that’s applied to the soil, either through irrigation or precipitation,  as well as the EC of the water that’s coming out of the bottom of your profile, then you can calculate what fraction of the applied water is being transpired by the plants, and what fraction is draining out of the bottom.  This method is useful for measuring water balance at field sites.

To illustrate this concept, let’s work through a simple example.  A particular field received 40 cm of water through precipitation and irrigation.  The average ECw of the precipitation and irrigation water is 0.5 dS/m.  Measurements of ECw draining from the soil profile below the root zone indicate an ECw of 2.0 dS/m.  The drainage or leaching fraction can be easily calculated as :

ECw(applied) / ECw(drained) = 0.5 dS/m / 2.0 dS/m = 0.25

The amount of water drained can also be easily calculated as:

Leaching fraction * applied water = 0.25 * 40 cm = 10 cm

Measuring Pore Water EC (ECw)

One challenge to this approach is the measurement of water electrical conductivity itself.  Bulk EC is a relatively simple measurement, and several types of soil water content sensors measure it as a basic sensor output.  However, the electrical conductivity of water, called pore water EC (ECw), is more complex.  Pore water EC requires that it be either estimated from the bulk EC and soil water content or that a sample of pore water be pulled from the soil matrix and measured.  When estimated, pore water EC can contain considerable error.  In addition, removing a water sample and measuring the pore water EC is not easy. 

To learn more about measuring EC, read our EC app guide.

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Dec 23

Reforestation Challenges Around the World

In the conclusion of our three part series on the reforestation of Banguet province in the Philippines, we asked Dr. Anthony S. Davis, Tom Alberg and Judi Beck Chair in Natural Resources at the University of Idaho, Loreca Stauber, one of the visionaries behind the project, and Kea Woodruff, former U of I Nursery Production and Logistics Associate, now at Harvard University, to explain some challenges associated with teaching reforestation to different cultures.

Ground view of a forest of bamboo looking up

Even with increased environmental awareness, we’re still losing almost thirty million acres of forest globally every year.

What are some of the cultural challenges?

Anthony: As I spend more and more time looking at international forests, I realize that we’re losing forests at a phenomenal rate. Even with all of our awareness about where we get supplies, where trees come from, where wood comes from, and where paper comes from, we’re still losing almost thirty million acres of forest globally every year. That’s terrifying to me. What’s even worse is that most of it comes from countries that don’t have environmental controls.  They don’t have systems in place that keep them from cutting down all the trees. Often, when we cut trees down for forestry, we replant. But, when you start to work in countries where that’s not valued or not part of the culture or the system, then a huge problem emerges.

How do you teach people to grow trees that can survive in their native terrain?

Anthony: There isn’t a lot of knowledge globally about how to grow high-quality tree seedlings. I’ve gotten really interested in the question of how to take a tree seedling which is grown in a nursery, where it essentially has all of the water and all of the nutrients it could possibly ask for, and get it into a condition where it’s likely to survive somewhere extremely harsh: with limited nutrients and water.  How do you get it to the point where it’s able to overcome those challenges?

There are two ways to look at that. One is to get more water to that seedling after it’s planted. The other is to make sure that the seedling you’re planting has its best possible chance of developing a root system that can access water that might not normally be available in those six inches where healthy roots are located when it’s first planted. Based on work that’s be done here at the University of Idaho in graduate student projects over the years, we found that if you can grow a seedling in a healthy manner in the nursery, it’s more likely to grow roots or access water that previously they might not have been able to access.

Researcher works on one of the water tanks that will supply water to the Benguet nursery in the Philippines

Working on one of the water tanks that will supply water to the Benguet nursery in the Philippines. The project is proceeding nicely after a series of setbacks: a destructive typhoon, slides that had to be cleared, 2 deaths, 1 funeral, and electrical power interruptions.

What challenges the plants after they leave the nursery?

Anthony: If that seedling can get roots down and access water, it starts to grow.  The beauty of reforestation, in general, is that it’s very simple; it can be very easy to get trees to grow. However, what often happens is you have a social element that overlaps the biological element. Some of it could be a lack of education, where people don’t understand that a large amount of foliage or leaves on a tree means that you need more water. You think about that image of success: people want to plant the biggest tree possible. That might work in a yard, but it really doesn’t work in a reforestation situation.

What are the challenges of establishing a nursery in a place like the Philippines?

Kea: In the place like the Philippines where resources aren’t necessarily as available, it becomes a huge challenge just finding the right kind of media or container. Also, there’s a decentralization of the knowledge resource itself. While we were there, we had the opportunity to meet with different government agencies, and there are definitely people who know a lot about the species that are available and how to grow them, but in terms of that information being disseminated and widely available to the public, that’s a challenge. The techniques that will be needed to actually produce a seedling resource need to be addressed.  

Loreca:  The basic thing is a good nursery. That has been a problem. In the past, the government, in an effort to green the Philippines, has given seedlings, but oftentimes, these seedlings are so poor in quality that they don’t survive in out planting.

Coffee beans thriving in the tropical Philippines

Coffee beans will thrive in the tropical Philippines.

How can you help other cultures to succeed at reforestation?

Anthony: During some work I was doing in the Middle East, in Lebanon, we found that communicating to people what a high-quality seedling became really important. You teach them about quality, defining it in terms of how much water a plant needs to survive, or how a plant has to grow in order to colonize a site.  We had a lot of success with the project there, getting people to understand that there was a problem in only looking at above ground information in terms of what makes a high-quality seedling. Really, when the roots are what’s driving survival, they’re looking at the wrong part of the picture.

How do you teach people to think beyond the nursery?

Anthony: Our work in Lebanon coincided with a project in Haiti. In Haiti, we had a former student who had been here at the University of Idaho who asked for help starting a nursery. These same conversations occurred: what is a healthy seedling, what is likely to survive, where do you get your seed, how long do you grow it for, when do you plant it?  We were able to have conversations around all of the elements that go into growing trees.

I remember clearly the “aha” moment where this young woman said, “We’ve been doing it wrong! We’ve always focused on growing as many seedlings as possible, and we haven’t worried about quality.”

See it live

Watch a video where Anthony talks about his work.

 

You can learn more about the reforestation programs that the University of Idaho nursery is involved with here.

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Dec 17

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Philippines Part 2: Overcoming Native Challenges with Remote Data

In one of the first agroforestry efforts in mountainous terrain, Moscow, Idaho community leader Loreca Stauber, Dr. Anthony S. Davis, Tom Alberg and Judi Beck Chair in Natural Resources at the University of Idaho, and their partners have initiated a program where U of I students travel overseas to work with farmers of Banguet province in the Philippines to develop the skills needed to grow high quality tree seedlings.  Local vegetable farmers have historically terraced the mountains that have been forested so they could grow monoculture crops, causing serious erosion (read about it here).  The land has degraded so much that the Philippine government has stepped in: warning farmers to begin conservation techniques, or they will take away the land and manage it themselves.

People building a local nursery in Benguet

Building a local nursery in Benguet.

Inspiring Students to Look at the Big Picture

One of the steps in helping local farmers to solve this problem is to create a local nursery where they can start growing native plants and trees.  Fortunately, the University of Idaho has operated a tree nursery for over one hundred years, and they understand how to grow trees. Dr. Davis specializes in setting up native nurseries for growing native plants all over the world. He says, “I want our students to be exposed to this because we’re graduating students who should be problem solvers, who should be able to look at the biggest challenges and contribute their own ideas towards resolving those challenges.”

Loreca Stauber adds, “We are part of the world and the world is part of us. The students can do more than just get their degree and find a job. Anthony and Kea, when they do this, inspire students to look at a bigger world than they are currently living in.”

Training Students to Understand Native Terrain and Resources

Davis says a good plan needs to take local conditions into account:  “The principles of growing trees are actually universal. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in Haiti, Lebanon, Idaho, or in the Philippines. Those principles are the same and they’re readily transferable. It’s how you adapt them to unique local situations that makes a difference.”

Close up on bamboo stalks

“It’s not really about the best way to grow a plant in a greenhouse environment; It’s about the best way to grow a plant that will also survive on its outplanting site.”

Kea Woodruff, former U of I Nursery Production and Logistics Associate, now at Harvard University, says they train the students who go overseas on the “target plant” concept:  designing a growing regime based on what the plant is going to need in its future home. She says, “It’s not really about the best way to grow a plant in a greenhouse environment; It’s about the best way to grow a plant that will also survive on its outplanting site. Determining what the outplanting site is and what each species will need to survive on that outplanting site is what determines greenhouse operations.”

Dr. Davis says you need to consider native resources when doing these types of projects.  “There could be plumbing there, but there’s no guarantee that when you turn the system on, the tap water will come out. That depends on the seasonality of the rains. It’s part of why we wanted the project partners (the farmers) to have data loggers: so we could look at the data together and get a better feel for when water is most abundant and when it’s most scarce, so it can be stored for later use.”

Overcoming Native Challenges with Remote Data

Decagon (now METER) donated data loggers to the program so that Dr. Davis and other people on the team could look at data with the farmers in the Philippines and advise them when to irrigate.  Davis says, “One of the things that’s most important in trying to set up a very remote nursery and manage the production in that nursery from approximately four flights, twelve hours, and twelve time zones away, is knowing what’s going on. There are things that are really easy to ask, like could you send me a picture every Wednesday and Saturday of the nursery, or could you measure the height and the diameter of the seedlings? What’s much harder to tell is how much water is coming in, or what the temperature was during the day or night, because those require people to be monitoring things at a greater frequency than is often possible. If we know how much water is coming into the nursery from rainfall, we can build collection systems so that we can manage where that water goes later on.”

Managing data for both the short and long term is critical, says Davis, because it’s often whether there was rainfall in the predicted amount, and at the right time, that determines whether a seedling establishes or not.

Next week:  The conclusion of our three part series: an interview with Dr. Davis and Kea Woodruff, discussing the cultural challenges of reforestation in different countries.

Acknowledgements:  The SEAGAA agroforestry project in Benguet is agro and forest; the farmers received a grant from the Rufford Foundation based in the UK to build a greenhouse and much of the water catchment system and auxiliary structure that go with a nursery facility.  They also received a sizable grant from the Philippine government to launch mushroom growing as a necessary complement to help support long-term agroforestry. The project is beyond reforestation – it is the growing of trees, shrubs, ground cover, the restoring of watersheds, creating livelihoods, the rebuilding of soil fertility and integrity, the revival of springs which have vanished with the removal of perennial flora, and the restoring biodiversity to bring back the natural checks and balances of a natural ecosystem.

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Dec 11

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Reforestation in the Philippines (Part 1)

In the mountainous Benguet province of the Philippines, farmers grow up to three crops of vegetables a year. Their mountain vegetable farms exist at the expense of original forest cover, causing tremendous erosion difficulties. To counteract erosion and preserve the watershed as well as promote reforestation, the Philippine government issued a mandate: farmers must find alternatives that restore the watershed or lose their land.

Arial view of rice terraces in the Philippines

Rice terraces in the Philippines

An Agroforestry Alternative

Loreca Stauber is no scientist, but she loves Benguet, and a letter from her friend, a scientist living in the Philippines, inspired her with the vision of teaching farmers to reforest the mountains and grow vegetables amongst the trees.  

Her friend writes, “We envision mountain farms as forest ecosystems whose primary social responsibility to the communities around and below is to be part of responsible watersheds that court, catch, store and gradually share water. We see mountain farms that are not prone to soil erosion or leaching: cultivated with minimal chemical inputs and tillage that will allow the natural buildup of biomass, organic matter, helpful organisms and fauna. We think of forest ecosystems that may not make millionaires of its farmers for one generation and heavy debtors even before the next. Rather, we envision forest farm ecosystems that are self-sufficient and self-sustaining. We are working on demonstrating forest ecosystems that can substitute for monocrop vegetable farms that deplete and leach the soil, pollute watersheds and are self-destructing.”  

Realizing the problem in the Philippines could be solved by reforestation, Loreca emailed Dr. Anthony S. Davis, Tom Alberg and Judi Beck Chair in Natural Resources in the University of Idaho’s Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Fire Sciences.  The U of I operates a 100-year-old nursery specializing in growing hardy tree seedlings. Dr. Davis recalls, “The email she sent me said, “I think you should do something about this,”  and I thought, “Actually I agree. I think we should do something about this.  So we began to screen the idea, asking: are there partners?  Is it a good idea?  Does it fit with this little thing that we do really well, which is essentially teaching people how to grow tree seedlings, and is there an educational component that’s valuable for our students?  When those check boxes lined up, then it was a matter of taking advantage of that opportunity and seeing where it could go.”

Green forested mountains in the Philippines

Forested mountains in the Philippines

Determining What Already Works

Together, they and other partners started a program in which U of I students went overseas to teach the people of Benguet how to grow trees, with the goal of moving the land toward agroforestry.  They wanted to grow a forest ecosystem (trees, shrubs, and ground cover) along with annual crops. Kea Woodruff, former U of I Nursery Production and Logistics Associate, now at Harvard University, traveled to the Philippines with an interdisciplinary team of undergraduate and graduate students to look at what agroforestry projects were already working and to conduct a needs assessment.    She says, “I saw a wide variety of landscapes in the areas that we were. One woman decided on her own that she was going to practice agroforestry, and people come and view her land as a demonstration site. It has mature bamboo, coffee trees, and mature Benguet pine. It really looks like what you would expect the native forest to look in an area like the Philippines.”

Kea said there were also intermediate sites where there are Benguet pines and some coffee with row crops blended in, such as strawberries and squash. She adds, “There’s clearly great potential to grow different species on these lands if we can help figure out the best way to use the resources that are available.”

Next week: Learn how partners in the project have been able to use native resources in the quest to reforest erosion-plagued Benguet.

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Dec 4

Understanding the Influence of Coastal Fog on the Water Relations of a California Pine Forest

Forests along the California coast and offshore islands experience coastal fog in summer, when conditions are otherwise warm and dry. Since fog-water inputs directly augment water availability to forests during the dry season, a potential reduction of fog due to climate change would place trees at a higher risk of water stress and drought-induced mortality.  Dr. Sara Baguskas completed her Ph.D. research in the geography department at UC Santa Barbara on how variation in fog-water inputs impact the water relations of a rare, endemic tree species, Bishop pine, located on Santa Cruz Island in Channel Islands National Park. The goal of her study was to enhance our ability to predict how coastal forests may respond to climate change by better understanding how fog-water inputs influence the water budget of coastal forests.

Fog on Trees

Dr. Baguskas’ study seeks a better understanding of how fog-water inputs influence the water budget of coastal forests.

Fog Manipulation

Santa Cruz Island supports the southern extent of the species range in California, thus it is where we would expect to see a reduction in the species range in a warmer, drier, and possibly less foggy future. To advance our mechanistic understanding of how coastal fog influences the physiological function of Bishop pines, Dr. Baguskas conducted a controlled greenhouse experiment where she manipulated fog-water inputs to potted Bishop pine saplings during a three-week drydown period. She installed soil moisture (VWC) sensors horizontally into the side of several pots of sapling trees at two different depths (2 cm and 10 cm) and exposed the pines to simulated fog events with a fog machine.

In one group of plants, Baguskas let fog drip down to the soil, and in another treatment, she prevented fog drip to the soil so that only the canopies were immersed in fog.  She adds, “Leaf wetness sensors were an important complement to soil moisture probes in the second treatment because I needed to demonstrate that during fog events, the leaves were wet and soil moisture did not change.” Additionally, Baguskas used a photosynthesis and fluorescence system to measure photosynthetic rates in each group.

Fog in pine trees from the ground

The fog events had a significant, positive effect on the photosynthetic rate and capacity of the pines.

Results

Dr. Baguskas found that the fog events had a significant, positive effect on the photosynthetic rate and capacity of the pines.  The combination of fog immersion and fog drip had the greatest effect on photosynthetic rates during the drydown period, so, in essence, she determined that fog drip to the soil slows the impact of drydown.  

“But,” she says, “when I looked at fog immersion alone, when the plant canopies were wet by fog with no drip to the soil, I also saw a significant improvement in the photosynthetic rates of these plants compared to the trees that received no fog at all, suggesting that there could have been indirect foliar uptake of water through these leaves which enhanced performance.”  An alternative interpretation of that, Baguskas adds, is that nighttime fog events reduced soil evaporation rates, resulting in less evaporative loss of soil moisture.

Dr. Baguskas says her “canopy immersion alone” data are consistent with other research: Todd Dawson, Gregory Goldsmith, Kevin Simmonin, Carter Berry, and Emily Limm have all found that when you wet plant leaves, it has a physiological effect, suggesting the plants are taking water up through their leaves and not relying as much on soil moisture.  (These authors performed different types of experiments, but their papers serve as reference studies). Baguskas says, “My results suggest that is what’s going on, but it’s not as definitive as other studies that have actually worked on tracking the water through leaves using a stable isotope approach.”  

Lessons Learned

Though Dr. Baguskas did not monitor soil temperature in this study, she says that in the future, she will always combine temperature data with soil moisture data.  She comments, “Consistently, the soil moisture in the “canopy-immersed only” plants was slightly elevated over the soil moisture in the control plants.  It made me wonder if this was a biologically meaningful result. Does it support the fact that if plants are taking up water through their leaves, they don’t rely on as much soil moisture?  Or did my treatment change soil temperature, and is that having a confounding effect on my results?  What I’ve learned from this, is that in the future I will always use soil probes with temperature sensors because you may not know until you see your results if temperature might be important.”

Future Fog Studies

Baguskas is a USDA-NIFA postdoctoral Research Fellow working with Dr. Michael Loik in the Environmental Studies Department at UC Santa Cruz. She continues to study coastal fog, but now in strawberry fields. Her current research questions are focused on integrating coastal fog into water-use decisions in coastal California agriculture. She loves the work and continues to rely on soil moisture sensors to make meaningful and reliable environmental measurements in the field and greenhouse.

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Nov 19

Killing Cheatgrass and Shooting for the Moon

My grandfather, Grant A. Harris, wrote his Ph.D. thesis about the detrimental effects of cheatgrass (bromus tectorum) on rangeland ecology, so I’ve been taught since birth to hate this invasive plant species. So it didn’t surprise me to read that cheatgrass has become the equivalent of an eco-supervillain, wreaking havoc in farmer’s fields, rapidly spreading, and reducing wheat yield—sometimes by fifty percent.  

Microscope focusing on glass panel with sample on it

Washington State University scientist, Dr. Ann Kennedy, has successfully worked with a naturally-occurring soil bacteria that limits the depth of root growth in cheatgrass.

Cheatgrass increases the spread of wildfire, aiding the jump from plant to plant, and it afflicts livestock: lodging in the eyes and mouths of grazing cattle, not to mention having little nutritional value. For years, it’s been tenacious and incredibly prolific, out-competing native grasses and essentially “taking over” the eco-world.  Until now.  This New York Times article spotlights Washington State University scientist, Dr. Ann Kennedy, and her successful work with a naturally-occurring soil bacteria that limits the depth of root growth in cheatgrass, reducing its competitive advantage on the prairie.  

As a scientist, I was intrigued by this article because of what it didn’t say.  Dr. Kennedy, a good friend of mine and a great scientist, once told me that her bacteria experiment was the one she thought least likely to work. She’d looked at it as a kind of “shoot the moon” idea, riddled with “unknowns,” making it risky to spend too much time on.  In fact, she’d only had time to pursue this interesting and challenging experiment because she’d made time for it.

A concentrated solution of bacteria being sprayed on cheatgrass

A concentrated solution of bacteria is sprayed on fields, and over time, the organisms colonize the roots of the cheatgrass.

In a seminar she gave years ago about her work with cheatgrass, Dr. Kennedy shared her simple 60-30-10 prioritization method.  Sixty percent of her research effort was put into core projects she knew would yield publishable papers and keep her lab running.  Thirty percent of her time was spent on challenging projects that were more impactful but less likely to succeed. Finally, she put ten percent of her effort into “shoot the moon” type projects: research that was unlikely to come to fruition, but if successful, would have a dramatic impact in the world.  

In science, it’s easy to get stuck in the purely practical, only spending time on the experiments we know will work. It’s safer and won’t expose us to ridicule when things don’t go the way we hope. But, Dr. Kennedy has proven that there is value in trying things that might fail.  

It’s been more than a decade since I’ve listened to her lecture, but it still impacts the way we do research at METER. Although we spend a lot of time on projects we know will turn into finished instruments, we continue to dream up ways to produce frozen soil moisture release curves or measure leaf water potential. These ideas may not succeed, but if they do, they could have a big impact on the way we make measurements.

As I think about my team’s research priorities and the possibilities of success, I always first consider core projects: What are we really good at?  What will be a sure bet for success?  But because of Dr. Kennedy, I’ll always devote some of my time to more risky endeavors, speculating on what could happen and what might possibly change the world.  

(Read about our most spectacular example of risky research:  the collaboration with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories to send one of our sensors to Mars.)

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Nov 14

Sensor Data Improves Cherry Production

In July of 2013, Lav Khot and his team were in the field looking at how cherries were picked, weighed, and transported, when suddenly a helicopter began circling around a nearby orchard block.  When Dr. Khot asked the grower about it he said, “There was a rain last night, and we are trying to dry the tree canopies.” The grower told Khot that cherries are susceptible to cracking if moisture stays on the fruit too long, so they hire helicopters to fly over their orchards to remove water from the fruit and leaves, hoping to prevent fruit loss.

Bright red cherries on a tree

The economic impact of solving the cherry cracking problem could be huge as growers now suffer heavy losses each year.

Fresh market cherries are a lucrative business. That’s how the growers can afford the approximately $25K it costs to rent the helicopters every season. They try to do everything that they can to stop any cracking or splitting, but interestingly, Dr. Khot says grower decisions are influenced completely by emotion. “If there is a rain event, the farmer will become anxious, and they will hire pilots to fly the helicopter.”  

Dr. Khot wondered if he could help the cherry growers make their decisions based on real data instead. He and his postdoc, Dr. Jianfeng Zhou, are using leaf wetness sensors to determine if and how long water is present on the tree canopies after a rain event. Dr. Khot hopes that the data from these sensors will help growers decide whether or not it makes sense to fly the helicopter.

Why the cherries split

Not all varieties of cherry crack, but high sugar content varieties do as the skin is thin during maturation.  There are two hypotheses associated with fruit splitting or cracking:

Irrigation:  High water availability in the soil as the fruit is maturing (a few weeks before harvest) encourages trees to take up more water and causing the fruit to split.

Rainwater:  Rain collects in the cherry stem bowl or hangs off the bottom and is slowly absorbed into the fruit along the osmotic potential gradient. The fruit will start to split due to increased pressure inside the skin.

Dr. Khot and his team will use soil moisture sensors to investigate the first hypothesis with the object of improving irrigation management, especially as harvest approaches.  And he’s getting some support:  “Dr. Matt Whiting (colleague at the Center for Precision and Automated Agricultural Systems, Washington State University) is helping us understand this cracking phenomenon from the soil perspective. He is doing work on deficit irrigation (reducing the rate of irrigation below optimal) towards harvest time and seeing how that relates to cracking.  Also, the WSU CAHNRS ERI (Emerging Research Issues grant), which supports high-risk research, has funded us $75,000, along with Decagon who is supporting us with their sensors.”

Last Year’s Research

There are two approaches to drying canopies. One uses a sprayer that produces a cross-wind that moves sideways through the canopies, while the other uses the downwash from helicopter blades.  Last year, Dr. Khot and his research assistant experimented with crosswind velocities to see how much wind was being generated and how much water was really being dispersed.   Dr. Khot commented, “Last season we went out to the WSU orchard and ran the sprayer at two settings in order to see how water was removed and how much wind was coming through the canopies for a given amount of time.” They had good success at both removing the water from the trees and measuring it with the leaf wetness sensors.  But, they started the measurements after the cherries had matured, so weren’t able to tie it to cracking.

This Year’s Experiment

One issue with using helicopters is that they are extremely dangerous.  Accidents are not uncommon, and unfortunately pilots have died.  This year the team will also evaluate the efficacy of a mid-size, unmanned helicopter in order to test if it can produce enough downwash to dry the cherries and compare it with manned helicopters.  Dr. Khot says, “The helicopters are large and difficult to fly close to the canopies, but we can program the unmanned drone to fly close to the canopy and get rid of the water safely.” Digital Harvest and Yamaha, who are supporting this aspect of the research, have received an exemption from the FAA so they can test their unmanned helicopter.

Differing Tree Architectures

Dr. Khot’s team did their first experiments on traditional cherry tree architectures (imagine a typical tree), but this year they will perform their experiments on trees that are trained into a “Y” shape, or completely vertical.

Cherry production trees

These trees represent traditional tree architecture, but this year researchers will perform their experiments on trees that are trained into a “Y” shape, or completely vertical.

Researchers have developed these new architectures for ease of harvesting and management, but Dr. Zhou says that there will be less canopy variability and thus more interpretable results compared to the traditional tree architecture where wind velocity is more heterogeneous throughout the canopy.

Economic Impact  

Dr. Khot says the economic impact of solving the cherry cracking problem could be huge as growers now suffer heavy losses each year.  One former grower underscored this when he noted they lost one crop in every four. But, there could be other benefits as well. The implications of this research could lead to solving other grower problems such as disease and pest management.   “WSU already has a good AgWeatherNet program where we monitor the weather outside the trees at different locations, but not inside the canopies. If we had some smart sensing equipment like the leaf wetness sensor sitting in the canopy monitoring the wetness level over a 24-hour cycle, then we could develop some models based on the wetness and relate them to the number of pests at different locations in the orchard.  That is something every grower can benefit from.”

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Nov 13

Will Sample Disturbance Lead to Lower Accuracy?

Sampling soil for laboratory analysis of water potential is done for two basic reasons.  The simplest is to determine the current water potential of the soil.  The other is to determine the moisture release curve of the soil.  Regardless of the reason for measurement, the question of sample disturbance is important to ensure an accurate result.  Dr. Colin Campbell explains why:

researcher hand holding soil

Soil is disturbed when it’s removed from its natural structure.

Water Potential and Pore Size:

In soil samples, the void spaces (pores) in between soil particles can be simplistically thought of as a system of capillary tubes, with a diameter determined by the size of the associated particles and their spatial association.  The smaller the size of those tubes, the more tightly water is going to be held because of the surface association.  

In a clay, water will be held more tightly than in a sand at the same water content because clay contains smaller pores and thus more surface area for the water to bind to. But, even sand can eventually dry to a point where there is only a thin film of water on its surfaces and water will be bound tightly.  In principle, the closer water is to a surface, the tighter it will be bound.

Sample Disturbance

Sample disturbance (disturbing soil pores when you remove a sample from the ground) becomes an issue depending on the water potential of your sample. Typically, the less negative (wetter) the water potential, the larger impact sample disturbance will have on the measurement.  We can do a calculation that shows there are specific pore sizes associated with specific water potentials (see table 1).

Water potential units diagram

If you disturb a sample with low water potential, permanent wilting point (-1.5 MPa) for example, the pores that are still filled with water would be approximately 0.2 um in diameter, far too small to be broken apart by scooping up a sample.  Thus, we could reasonably assume that your WP readings won’t be affected much.  But if you disturb soil with higher water potential, say field capacity (-0.033 MPa), it’s much more likely that water will be disturbed, as it fills pores to approximately 9 um.    

Hygrometers

Still, this is only an issue if you are attempting to measure in a high WP range.  If your chilled-mirror hygrometer only measures up to -1000 kPa, sample disturbance will not be an issue because those pores that will have broken will likely be larger than the sub-micrometer that are holding water, which is beyond the accuracy of your instrument.   However, some hygrometers can now measure to an upper limit of -100 kPa, which approaches the point where sample disturbance will make a difference.  

Tensiometers

If you are sampling to measure with a tensiometer (measures 0 kPa to -80kPa), it’s extremely important to keep your samples intact because tensiometers cover the emptying range of the largest pores found in soil.  A soil collar (sample ring) pounded into the ground will yield the most intact soil core.  It’s the best method to use if you need make sure soil pores remain undisturbed to yield an accurate water potential measurement.

For a more in-depth examination of the magnitude of the effects of sample disturbance, read this chilled-mirror hygrometer App Note detailing the subject.

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Oct 31

Water Potential/Water Content:  When to Use Dual Measurements

In a previous post, we discussed water potential as a better indicator of plant stress than water content.  However, in most situations, it’s useful to take dual measurements and measure both water content and water potential.  In a recent email, one of our scientist colleagues explains why: “The earlier article on water potential was excellent.  But what should be added is an explanation that the intensity measurement doesn’t translate directly into the quantity of water stored or needed. That information is also required when managing water through irrigation.  This is why I really like the dual measurement approach. I am excited about the possibilities of information that can be gleaned from the combined set of water content, water potential, and spectral reflectance data.”

Field plantation with a sprinkler in the middle of it

Potato field irrigation

Managing Irrigation

The value of combined data can be illustrated by what’s been happening at the Brigham Young University Turf Farm, where we’ve been trying to optimize irrigation of turfgrass (read about it here). As we were thinking about how to control irrigation, we decided the best way was to measure water potential.  However, because we were in a sandy soil where water was freely available, we also guessed we might need water content. Figure 1 illustrates why.

Turf farm data concerning water potential diagram

Figure 1: Turf farm data: water potential only

Early water potential data looks uninteresting; it tells us there’s plenty of water most of the time, but doesn’t indicate if we’re applying too much.  In addition, if we zoom in to times when water potential begins to change, we see that it reaches a stress condition quickly.  Within a couple of days, it is into the stress region and in danger of causing our grass to go into dormancy.  Water potential data is critical to be able to understand when we absolutely need to water again, but because the data doesn’t change until it’s almost too late, we don’t have everything we need.

Turf farm data dual measurements data diagram

Figure 2: Turf farm data, volumetric water content only

Unlike water potential, the water content data (Figure 2) are much more dynamic. The sensors not only show the subtle changes due to daily water uptake but also indicate how much water needs to be applied to maintain the root zone at an optimal level. However, with water content data alone, we don’t know where that optimal level is. For example, early in the season, we observe large changes in water content over four or five days and may assume, based upon onsite observations, that it’s time to irrigate. But, in reality, we know little about the availability of water to the plant. Thus, we need to put the two graphs together (Figure 3).

Water potential and vol. water content diagram

Figure 3: Turfgrass data: both water potential and volumetric water content together.

In Figure 3, we have the total picture of what’s going on in the soil at the BYU turf farm. We see the water content going down and can tell at what percentage the plants begin to stress.  We also see when we’ve got too much water: when the water content is well above where our water potential sensors start to sense plant stress. With this information, we can tell that the turfgrass has an optimal range of 12% to 17% volumetric water content. Anything below or above that range will be too little or too much water.  

Soil water potential and volumetric water content diagram

Figure 4: Turfgrass soil moisture release curve (black). Other colors are examples of moisture release curves for different types of soil.

Dual measurements will also allow you to make in situ soil moisture release curves like the one above (Figure 4), which detail the relationship between water potential and water content.  Scientists can evaluate these curves and understand many things about the soil, such as hydraulic conductivity and total water availability.

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