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Wye Research Site

The Wye Research and Education Center is one of the University of Maryland's premier research stations, located on the eastern shore of Maryland, near Queenstown, MD. A container-nursery research site was established by Drs. Lea-Cox, Ross and Ristvey in 2000, specifically to research water and nutrient dynamics in container-nursery systems. A number of publications have resulted from that research over the years, including early work on monitoring and controlling irrigation events using time domain reflectometry.
	Research Project: The current research project at the site is quantifying nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from 4 native plant species, comparing the current best irrigation management practice (cyclic irrigation) with irrigation events that are based on the matric potential of the substrate. As such, the sensor-driven irrigation events are only initiated when the pine bark substrate matric potential reaches a setpoint of -10kPa. Watch a video demonstration of this sensor-driven irrigation capability, given by Dr. Ristvey. Please note that this RealPlayer file is approximately 5MB in size.
Sensor Network Objectives: The primary objectives of this study are to precisely schedule irrigation events for the four species of plants, based on plant requirements. This is done using Ech20-20cm capacitance sensors which are inserted at a 45 degree angle in four of the containers in each plot. Data are averaged on a continuous basis, and when the lower matric potential setpoint is reached, the solenoid is activated. When the containers reach container capacity, the sensors direct the solenoid to switch off. This network is in a fairly remote location on the research farm, about 1 mile from the nearest building. Data is transmitted over that distance to an antenna located on a barn close to the office buildings, and then via the internet, to a server located a CMU in Pittsburgh.
	Preliminary Results: Results to date show that sensor-driven irrigation events results in about a 20-fold reduction in irrigation water applied, with a large decrease in water leaching from the containers. Canopy growth of the species is somewhat reduced by lower water supply, but this may be balanced by increased root growth, which may help with plant establishment in the landscape.