Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Installation of 'Access" tubes to accomodate frequency domain reflectometry probe in order to measure volumetric soil moisture at Fabian Garcia ASC by Jacque Cormier, NMSU Viticuture PhD graduate student





1.21.2020 
This week at the Fabian Garcia ASC vineyard in Las Cruces the access tubes are being installed into the cover cropped and bare soil 'control' plots of the Malbec block. Tim, one of our student workers uses a mallet and metal rod to drive the fiberglass tube into the 100-centimeter deep hole made by an auger. A consistent and tight (no air spaces or gaps) soil to tube contact installation is critical. Once installed, these tubes will accommodate a banded probe, frequency domain reflectometry (FDR) probe that can detect soil volumetric water content at 6 different depths. These moisture readings will help researchers (us) better understand the relationship between different vineyard cover crops and soil moisture throughout the seasons, and how any differences in soil moisture affect vine performance.



Installation of access tube with aluminum rod that is
    placed inside of the tube and then driven to depth with
mallet to place the tube at the correct depth.
Components used to install the 'access' tubes







1.17.2020
Over the next two weeks the vineyards at NMSU's Fabian Garcia Agriculture Science Center will be dormant pruned. Dormant pruning maintains the vines within a manageable size from year to year, making it easier for the field crew to access the fruit and manage the inter-row cover crops. Here at Fabian Garcia we spur prune the predominately vertical shoot positioned (VSP) trained vines. Later in the spring, after bud break, we will thin new shoots to a specific count per foot (usually 3-4 per foot of cordon) to keep the research vines consistent and to maintain 'vine balance' (leaf to fruit ratio). The dormant wood is bundled per vine and weighed in the Malbec block, being used in the cover crop study.
Weighing dormant pruning wood and Tim (recording the weights on his phone (background with black jacket and baseball cap) @ NMSU Fabian Garcia ASC, January 2020



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