Author: Brad Lee
Planning Unit: Plant and Soil Sciences
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Outcome: Initial Outcome
Staff at the Kentucky Mesonet at Western Kentucky University have been working diligently over several decades to expand comprehensive weather stations across Kentucky with a goal of at least one station per county. The most modern stations being installed contain soil moisture and soil temperature probes with depth. The Ballard County Agriculture and Natural Resource agent, Tom Miller, had been working tirelessly for several years to identify a landowner with the appropriate site characteristics for a mesonet station. Mr. Miller secured a location on a property which was not being farmed due to sodic soil characteristics resulting in low yields. Sodic soils, present in isolated areas of western Kentucky, have low infiltration rates leading to droughty soil conditions during dry periods and water-logged soils during wet times of the year. Partnering with Matt McCauley, USDA NRCS MLRA Region 6 – Owensboro Leader, we collected soil cores at targeted locations around the proposed mesonet station site to find a sodic soil and a non-sodic soil within the cable range of the proposed station. Soils cores were collected at eight locations to a depth of 1.5 meters in the field and brought to campus for sodium (sodic soil properties) analyses. We were able to identify two locations, one with sodic soil properties and one without. On May 9th, 2022, the dedication of the Ballard County mesonet station was conducted and the data collection initiated. This was the first Kentucky mesonet station to include two soil moisture probe arrays which will help identify the soil moisture and temperature differences, if any, within western Kentucky sodic soils and non-sodic soils.
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