Almond Orchards Water Use, Remote Sensing and ACASA

Project PI: Kosana Suvočarev

Co-PIs: Amelie Gaudin, Samuel Sandoval, Jon Lundgreen, Yufang Jin, Mark Battany, Kyaw Tha Paw U

Students: Jarin Tasnim Anika, Ian Flynn McDonald

Postdoc: Yifan Guan

Project Scientist: Rex Dave Pyles

Funding Source: General Mills

Duration: Ongoing, data collected since Spring 2022

Project Descriptions

Due to numerous environmental benefits of cover crops, we designed the experiment at 6 different orchards to evaluate the differences in water use of almond orchards managed with bare soils or different degrees of cover crops/grazing. In addition, CO2 measurements and soil sampling will help us develop information on potential for carbon sequestration in orchards and its storage in the soils. Remote Sensing products and ACASA modeling will be evaluated and used to upscale local experimental observations to larger almond growing areas of the State.

Project goals

1) evaluate impacts of cover crops and grazing on water balance of whole orchard, 2) test OpenET, 3) Calibrate remote sensing, UAV and ACASA

Measurements:

6 EC towers; CSAT3, IRGASON, FW3, SN500, soil profilers, G flux packages, T/RH

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