Bouldin Island Corn

This corn site is on Bouldin Island, midway between Rio Vista and Lodi. It is on deep peat soils.  

https://ameriflux.lbl.gov/sites/siteinfo/US-bi2

This site serves as a reference site for business-as-usual land use in the Delta, with regards to comparing results from agricultural and restored wetland sites.   The site is noted to be a significant source of carbon due to the decomposition of aerated peat soils (> 1000 gC m-2 y-1).

This site has many proximal remote sensing sensors on the tower and in the understory to monitor growth. The site has been useful for quantifying the relation between ecosystem assimilation and outgoing near infrared radiation.

Baldocchi, D. D., et al. (2020). "Outgoing Near Infrared Radiation from Vegetation Scales with Canopy Photosynthesis Across a Spectrum of Function, Structure, Physiological Capacity and Weather." Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences n/a(n/a): e2019JG005534.

We have been collaborating with Whendee Silver at this site, too. She and her team are measuring soil flux of methane, N2O and CO2 with autochambers and Piccaro laser spectrometers.

In 2024, the farmers rotated the corn and planted sorghum. In 2025, corn was planted again at the site.