Location: Soil, Water & Air Resources Research
Project Number: 5030-11610-006-008-R
Project Type: Reimbursable Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Oct 1, 2020
End Date: Sep 30, 2025
Objective:
The overarching objective of this project is to establish levels of and monitor greenhouse gas emissions at the farm field level.
Approach:
The project will utilize both eddy covariance flux towers and static chamber methods to quantify field scale emissions (eddy covariance flux towers), simultaneously quantifying emissions from fertilizer and biomass (static chambers). Project partners are combining these data with site-specific precision agricultural data (collected via telemetry connected to agricultural equipment) to understand management, soil, greenhouse gas, surface energy balance exchange, water use, carbon dioxide exchange, water quality and production interactions in feedstock production for bio-fuels. ARS Ames and Morris sites have multiple eddy covariance towers (AmeriFlux and Long Term Agro-ecosystem Research (LTAR)) instrumented to measure carbon dioxide and water vapor fluxes as well available energy (net radiation and soil heat fluxes) and a suite of ancillary meteorological measurements installed on-farms with multi-year access contracts. These existing towers are part of the AmeriFlux and LTAR network within the Upper Mississippi River Basin https://www.ars.usda.gov Contingent upon farmer consent one (or more) of these towers will be instrumented with additional sensors for monitoring nitrous oxide and methane. In collaboration with SDSU, automated static chambers will be deployed to capture nitrogen fertilizer episodic events at the Minnesota location. The chambers will be installed using a statistically viable manner with randomization replication subsection of the field, which is proximal to the towers. Furthermore, these chambers will be located so they do not interfere with the producer’s field scale operations. Electric lines will be install as needed to support the continuous operation of the chambers. The chambers will be closely monitoring during the deployment utilizing technical support from Morris trained by SDSU. The eddy covariance data will be shared with ARS scientists at Ames, Iowa for processing and with the parent LTAR.
