Robotic greenhouse gas monitoring to measure impacts of climate-smart farming practices

Measurement of greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes is essential for verifying the effectiveness of "climate-smart" farming practices intended to reduce GHG emissions or promote long-term storage of carbon in soils. Comprehensive measurement of GHG fluxes from fields is not currently possible. There is an opportunity to market a low-cost automated device for monitoring GHG fluxes across fields by collecting gas samples for off-field analysis. The overall project goal is to increase the technical readiness of a prototype robotic chamber for monitoring GHG fluxes from soil surfaces between rows of a crop like corn. The supporting objectives are: (a) redesign the autosampler and chamber; (b) develop a more robust solution for automatically opening and closing the chamber periodically; (c) test performance compared to existing research flux chambers; (d) test performance over 24-hr periods of operation. Testing will be carried out on a nitrogen fertilizer experiment at a research site near St. Paul MN. A final round of prototyping will be conducted to develop an improved design that would be used in a Phase II project. The proposed Phase I project is directly relevant to USDA's strategic goal of combatting climate change because actions cannot be taken to alter GHG fluxes without first measuring them.