Environmental Sensors for Measuring Weather and Intra-canopy Conditions

Sensor networks give us the ability to collect microclimatic data at various scales of precision, including temperature, relative humidity, total radiation and photosynthetic photon flux, rainfall, leaf wetness, wind speed and direction. This suite of sensors can provide powerful insight into the variability of environmental conditions within a production area for research purposes, and characterizing this variability is important for sensor placement, to minimize the quantity of sensors required. The primary data can also be used to calculate integrated variables such as degree-day, vapor pressure deficit and daily light integral, which give keen insight into plant productivity, relative growth rate and water use. The associated practicum will demonstrate and discuss the placement, calibration and maintenance of these environmental sensors. A demonstration of Decagon (DataTrac) software will illustrate how the various data and integrated variables are easily calculated and displayed.