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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Houma, Louisiana » Sugarcane Research » Research » Research Project #436209

Research Project: Calibrating Agricultural Sensors to Improve Knowledge of Sugarcane Plant Health, Water Use, and Sustainability

Location: Sugarcane Research

Project Number: 6052-13210-003-001-N
Project Type: Non-Funded Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Apr 1, 2019
End Date: Mar 31, 2024

Objective:
The objective is to calibrate the Arable Mark I and II integrated analytical platform with our existing weather station measurements. Specifically, ARS will host these platforms in a sugarcane field setting to collect weather and plant health data. ARS will be providing air temperature, relative humidity, and precipitation data to Arable Labs from an existing weather station to aid in the calibration of their Mark I and II.

Approach:
The USDA-ARS, Sugarcane Research Unit in Houma, Louisiana, will host the sensor platforms in a sugarcane field setting to collect weather and plant health data. The ARS weather station consists of (a) an eddy covariance Flux tower for measuring water vapor and carbon dioxide concentrations and wind speed/direction; (b) sensors used to collect air temperature, vapor pressure, barometric pressure, precipitation, up/down short/longwave radiation; (c) sensors for measuring soil heat flux, water content, and temperature. The ARS weather station is located at the USDA Ardoyne Farm in Schriever, Louisiana, in a sugarcane field currently in the 2nd ratoon crop. From this station, ARS will be providing air temperature, relative humidity, and precipitation data to Arable Labs. Both the Mark I and II sensor platforms will be deployed in the same field to collect data as well. Data will be made available to Arable Labs to use in their calibration procedure.