Apr 15, 2021
Drought Effects on Walnut and Irrigation Strategies
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FloraPulse is currently developing a microtensiometer system for walnuts. It’s been a tough nut to crack, but we are making progress and might have ‘walnut ready’ FloraPulse systems for sale next year. In the meantime, I wanted to share some irrigation guidance on walnut from the excellent UC ANR guide (reference at the end). For […]
Apr 01, 2021
How FloraPulse achieves good sensor-tissue contact during installation
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The greatest source of variability in the measurements of stem potentials with the FloraPulse microtensiometer is the variation in the contact between the sensor chip and the xylem of the plant. The xylem is a complex tissue made up of elongated, active water pipes of varying size, older inactive plugged pipes and additional living generally […]
Mar 20, 2021
Should the FloraPulse microtensiometer agree with the pressure chamber?
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The Scholander Pressure Chamber, aka “pressure bomb”, has become the standard for measuring the water potential of plants, whether as exposed or shaded leaves, or as internal stem potential at a point of measurement. Leaves under natural conditions can be measured; but if leaves are bagged in plastic bags with foil to stop transpiration and […]
Mar 18, 2021
Drawbacks of ET irrigation scheduling
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A recent irrigation seminar from the University of California and the Almond Board discussed various methods to determine when/how to irrigate crops. There are 3 main methods: weather-based, soil-based, and plant-based. The most widely used method is weather based evapotranspiration (ET), which estimates the amount of water used by the plants. ET serves as a […]
Mar 05, 2021
Two years of 24/7 water potential – Napa Valley Cabernet
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FloraPulse sensors have been installed for almost two years in a high-end vineyard in Napa Valley. They still show great, accurate stem water potential readings. This is the longest continuous water potential dataset ever recorded. You might be tasting this wine in a couple of years! First irrigation block 24/7 water potential data This graph […]
Mar 05, 2021
FloraPulse sensors in Chile! Prune, cherry and grape.
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For the curious, here is data from FloraPulse sensors installed with our partner OLIVOS riego in prune, cherry and grape. The sensors were installed in Chile and have been running splendidly for 2-3 months now, and compare favorably with the pressure chamber. Plots below show the midday stem water potential (midday SWP, black lines) data […]
Mar 01, 2021
Isn’t Soil Moisture Good Enough to Estimate Crop Stress?
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For decades growers and researchers have used soil moisture to guide irrigation of crops. It is logical that since plants get their water from the soil. But does the soil moisture really give a good estimate of the water status of the crop? Sometime yes, and sometimes no. There are several reasons for that especially […]
Feb 23, 2021
FloraPulse featured on The Packer
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Ken Shackel, professor/pomologist at the University of California, Davis, is analyzing a sensor from Davis-based FloraPulse Co. developed by Cornell University. Read more here: https://www.thepacker.com/news/sustainability/water-conservation-thrives-technology-and-innovation
Jan 25, 2021
How to Estimate or Measure the Water Status of Plants in the Field?
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Many different interacting factors affecting supply (soil moisture), demand (weather) or plant factors (leaf area, canopy display) that combine to affect water stress in plants. Since there are so many indirect and interacting factors involved, the plant integrates all of them. So, measuring any one is inadequate. So how best to estimate or measure it? […]
Jan 11, 2021
Letter from FloraPulse founder Dr. Alan Lakso to plant researchers
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We wanted to let you know that after more than a decade of research at Cornell then development into a practical tool by our FloraPulse Co., the FloraPulse microtensiometer is now commercially available (see https://www.florapulse.com/ ). It is a microchip version of the classic tensiometer principle designed to be embedded in trunks or large branches […]
Dec 18, 2020
FloraPulse featured on the MIT Technology Review
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Hal Crain, owner of Crain Ranch nut farm and FloraPulse customer says: We’re in the far north end of California and it’s going to reach 97 degrees today. It’s low humidity. It’s not desert by any stretch; we have significant rainfall. But we get really hot during the summer. We’re just starting to use something […]
Dec 04, 2020
2020 Virtual Almond Conference
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Come see FloraPulse at The Almond Conference 2020, the largest almond conference in the world, hosted by the Almond board of California. The three-day event starts on Tuesday, December 8th and runs through the 10th, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day! Visit us to see the FloraPulse system – sensors that directly measure […]