Home is where I can wield a camera!

In late May I was given a sleek video camera and a task – get as many clips as possible of different types of irrigation heads and low-volume irrigation examples before June 1st. The objective: video content to illustrate different landscape irrigation options for a University of Florida (UF) installation in Washington, D.C.!

 In May, guesting with the UCU: great shot, lousy ET station location!

Folk it up!

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival begins next week and UF is one of several land-grant universities participating in the event.

UF's installation will highlight its sundry array of water-related work and research.

Have camera will travel

Well, if you know me you know I love visual media as much as I love getting dirty in the field with sprinklers! So I took the camera with me on home visits in Orlando to capture different heads in mild-mannered settings, and I also visited Orange County Extension and Alachua County Extension to shoot their amazing native and flower gardens.

At Alachua County Extension: a micro-spray in action

I soon compiled a hot clip collection to complement the UF media team’s existing bank of footage. In addition, the team loved a sequence from one of my Urban Conservation Unit videos so much, they snagged it right off the web!

Going FL-friendly: a shot so nice it's on the web...twice!

You can view videos of all the UF programs to be showcased in D.C. here. My contributions can be found in the Landscape Irrigation section: drip and microjets! I also generated the copy detailing each type of sprinkler.

Ready for your close-up?

I haven’t produced a formal video since February, but I hope to take my talents to South Florida in late July for some speedy production work. See you then!

Isaya Kisekka Award

Big congratulations to Isaya who recently presented his research at the FASABE meeting in Jupiter. The title of his presentation was Predicting Water Table Elevation Response to Proposed Operational Adjustments in C-111 Canal  Stage in Farmlands East Canal C-111 in Southern Florida. He won third place in the graduate student presentation competition. Great job Isaya! We are proud of you!

 

Water Quality Professional Training Course

Drs. Migliaccio and Li have put together a distance education opportunity for UF and non-UF affiliates. This program is based on a week-long course that was held in 2011 but can be experienced now - at your convenience - through the UF distance education sakai interface. More information is available at: http://trec.ifas.ufl.edu/kwm/wqt.shtml.


The most amazing thing about this course is that it is free of charge for UF students, faculty, and staff! Others must pay a $300 fee, but it is well worth the cost!! 


Those who successfully complete the course will receive a certificate.


The course is based somewhat on the book Water Quality Concepts, Sampling, and Analyses by Drs. Li and Migliaccio. Special thanks to Dr. Michael Dukes and the Dean of Research for helping fund this adventure!

O.C.P.: water savings in mouse country

This is the first in a series of entries about the projects I am working on in Gainesville. This post focuses on the Orange County Project (OCP) – an Orlando-based collaborative effort between Orange County Utilities (OCU), South Florida Water Management District, St. Johns River Water Management District, Water Research Foundation and UF/IFAS.

Orlando-bound: sunrise over the Turnpike

Doing it big!

On permanent watering restrictions since 2010 (one or two days a week depending on the time of year) and actively fining violators regardless of watering source (potable or ground), Orange County (OC) is serious about water conservation. In this context, early last year OC agreed to a multi-year study to assess the water-savings potential of smart irrigation control devices – in this case soil moisture sensors (SMS) and on-site, evapotranspiration-based (ET) timers.

The more things change...: potable water waste at Orlando commercial property

In the initial stages, the water-use history of thousands of properties was analyzed, but only several hundred advanced to the survey-taking phase. From there, even less qualified for physical irrigation system assessment by researchers and subsequent invitation to participate in the project.

OCU furnishes the water-use data from smart meters installed at research sites

Currently, water use and turf quality data is collected from 167 homeowner properties, varying in turf type, soil type, and size of irrigated area. The irrigation treatments are monitor only, SMS and ET.

The sweetest plum

SMS add-on device wired to a residential automated timer

One fascinating aspect of the study involves the latter treatments described above. Properties with SMS and ET technology also vary with respect to how much engagement they had with UF staff. While some homeowners were shown how their technology works and various adjustment options; others were sent information through the mail and left at the mercy of the user’s guide and the device-installing contractor.

Research site: turf worth writing home about

Because long-term research objectives include wide promotion of smart irrigation control devices (possibly through a rebate program) as well as restriction exemptions for any property installing this technology, the data this limited-engagement treatment generates is especially insightful. If a county of 1.2 million moves toward the popular use of smart irrigation technology to either conserve more or simply avoid watering restrictions, the viability of self-instruction and irrigation contractor expertise will be critical.

Home under study: project-issued restriction exemption

Enter the dragon...(or me)

Insssspecting SMS wiring in a valve box

I transitioned into OCP only days after arriving from South Florida. The first order of business: auto-calibrate SMS devices on 63 properties in the greater-Orlando area.

Auto-calibration, step 1: saturate suspected TDT sensor location

Auto-calibration, step 2: engage the SMS auto-calibration feature

My additional OCP tasks include massaging water-use data, attending to homeowners with ET timer gripes, and conducting periodic turf quality assessments – old hat for a tech forged in the water-wasting badlands of Miami-Dade. As of last week, all SMS properties have been visited and the first round of auto-calibrations is complete.

Note to self: don't report this property

The slash-and-burn method: useful or not for agriculture and biodiversity improvement??

Ancient farming method may help conserve savannahs

A fire-free farming method practiced by early inhabitants of the Amazonian savannahs could help inform efforts to conserve and rehabilitate these important ecosystems around the world, a study has found.

The research provides greater historic context for findings presented at a conference earlier this year (26 January), which suggested that slash-and-burn — in which trees are felled, left to dry and then burned to prepare land for farming — provides better growing conditions for valuable trees such as mahogany.
This latest study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (9 April), found that 800 years ago, prior to European settlement of Latin America, indigenous farmers had developed a technique known as 'raised-field' farming to manage land sustainably without using fire.

The method involved constructing small agricultural 'mounds' which promoted drainage, soil aeration and moisture retention. It conserved soil nutrients and organic matter, and preserved soil structure. 

The ancient technique was studied by researchers, who have created the first detailed picture of land use by documenting the very low frequencies of charcoal particles — an indicator of fire — in the savannahs of French Guyana. 

(Source: Aleida Rueda, 2012, http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/44318)

And: 

Slash-and-burn 'improves tropical forest biodiversity'

[MEXICO CITY] Slash-and-burn agricultural practices, banned by governments because of the risk of uncontrolled fires, provide better growing conditions for valuable new trees than more modern methods of forest clearance, a study suggests.

Starting in 1996, researchers cleared 24 half-hectare areas of tropical forest in Quintana Roo state, in southern Mexico, using three methods: clear-felling, where most of the trees are cut down; bulldozing; and slash-and-burn, a practice common among smallholders, in which trees are felled, left to dry and then burned, to prepare the land for agriculture.

Mahogany seeds and seedlings were then planted and, after 11 years, the researchers compared the sites and found that slash-and-burn techniques had provided the best growing conditions for mahogany.
But, more interestingly, many valuable species had thrived in the slash-and-burn plots, said Laura Snook, one of the study authors and programme director at Bioversity International, which conducts research into agricultural biodiversity for the improvement of livelihoods.

In clear-felled areas, more than half of each area contained tree species of no commercial value, Snook said. In areas cleared by slash-and-burn, 60 per cent of species were commercially valuable. Additionally, the largest trees in slash-and-burn areas were 10 per cent bigger than those in bulldozed areas.

Snook was presenting the results of the study — which ended last year — at the annual conference of the International Society of Tropical Foresters, at Yale University, United States, last month (26 January). 

(Source: Aleida Rueda, 2012, http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/43972)

Discussion:


Is the slash-and-burn (uncontrolled fires) really more valuable for biodiversity improvement than controlled fire method?




 

Getting “smart”: West Palm Beach & Central Florida!

Recent regional media coverage is shining the spotlight on “smart” irrigation technology. Below are two articles detailing advancements in irrigation controllers and water management and how utilities and municipalities are moving to integrate these advancements into their water conservation efforts.

ET in West Palm Beach

Weather-based timer with on-site weather station

On the verge of exhausting its water supply last year, West Palm Beach is now moving to promote the use of weather-based timers by granting residents installing these devices an exemption from watering restrictions.

Above the law: the Orange County irrigation exemption

Currently, Orange County, in Central Florida, grants residents an irrigation exemption (for posting, pictured above) if they participate in a water-saving study (in collaboration with UF) evaluating ET-based timers and soil moisture sensors.

Some of these residents are using this technology to enhance their watering regime, and others operate them “off the leash,” setting their automated timer to water seven days a week, or programming their ET controller with no watering day restrictions, and relying on the technology to keep them safe from high water bills.

Read more about West Palm Beach's irrigation exemption efforts here.

I calculate GPM, therefore I am

Right: Neptune e-coder, smart water meter

Over the past few weeks I’ve spent several days in Orlando working on what is referred to here as the OCU Project. In fact, last week I saw the sunrise from the highway twice on my way there for early site visits! But more on this in a future post.

Recently, while assessing an irrigation system, I was asked by another researcher (graduate student Stacia Davis) to get the gallons per minute (GPM) information from the home's water meter while she ran the system for zone area measurements. Well, I reached for my hand-held device like I’ve done countless times with the Urban Conservation Unit, and she tells me to take a look in the meter box first because these water meters calculate their own GPM data!

No mess, no fuss: smart meter at rest flashes its GPM rate

Sure enough, every 15 seconds, as the digital meter reads the total volume, it also tabulates and flashes a GPM rate. As this rate stabilizes, the GPM calculation is achieved, sans any subtracting or dividing.

Read more about smart water meter use in Central Florida here.

The Growing Season out at C111 Comes to an End

Isaya and I have seen many crops this year, and due to our weekly downloads have had the pleasure of watching many go from seed to harvest.

Isaya and Nicki taking measurements for LAI in a young corn field

Several weeks later same corn field being harvested

With the heat now starting to creep up on us we realize that the season will soon come to an end, and this is exactly what we witnessed on our last download.

Ploughing a field of recently harvested yellow squash

However in the midst of the season wrapping up and the land being cleared their is still, at least for the next couple of weeks, a failry young crop of green beans (they are one of the last seasonal crops that can withstand a bit higher temperatures).

We did not suffer any major frosts or freezes this year so hopefully our farmers had a successful year. We will continue to collect our weekly downloads but we are definitely looking forward to our next growing season!