MAY | JUNE 2016
Almond Facts
31
indication of tree water status and will help confirm what
suggestive data in the orchard is telling him.
Sap Flow System
“We are switching slowly over to the sap flow system and
some of the information we are generating is becoming very
interesting in terms of tying the soil moisture data in with
solar radiation and other weather station data.”
Site-specific data also helps account for extreme variations
of soil type or variations in microclimate within the orchard
that might impact water use differently.
“The data set is a combination of real-time information
from the weather stations, soil profile monitoring and sap
flow, that hopefully will paint a pretty accurate picture so
that by the end of this year we will have a nice big data set
to tell us how best to apply all the technology,” he said.
“We are trying to take all the guesswork out of it.”
Goshgarian’s Watermark sensor system measures soil moisture throughout the soil profile and integrates data into a web-based portal where he can
retrieve it in real-time or compare it to historical information.
Goshgarian is experimenting with sap flow sensors to see if
measurements of tree water use confirm he is using data to
schedule irrigations for maximum benefit to the tree.
