Spring Cleaning at Lyon!

This month marks spring cleaning month for the field site! The first step to the spring cleaning was replacing the septa on the collar heads. Remember the "collars" used to measure soil respiration in the previous posts? Well they need regular upkeep in order to help us get an accurate reading of the CO2 coming off the soil surface. This week the "septa", which is the top rubber part of the collar where the needle is inserted for taking up a gas sample, was replaced. The old septa had cracked in the sun and harsh conditions that Lyon Arboretum faces.

The site also received some mega weeding TLC, to help to prepare for the probe installation coming up later this spring.

Figure 1: Masters student Casey replacing the collar head septa.

Figure 2: The collar heads all lined up and ready for replacement.

Figure 3: The septa the are being replaced for the column heads. Red are the old septa and white are the new replacement septa.

Figure 4: The aftermath of the weed piles after some heavy duty weeding for the site! Mahalo to Aziz from the Lyon Arboretum crew for the quick weed whacking brush over, making the weeding MUCH easier!

Next up for the Spring cleaning tasks, replacing the marker flags, rebuilding the water damaged weather station and mapping out the probe locations with site markers!