| Irrigation adventures in the desert | |||||||||
| By:Adam West | |||||||||
| This poster photographically documents an irrigation experiment conducted in Southern Utah. The aim of this experiment was to examine the responses of the dominant woody species in an Piñon-Juniper woodland to a simulated summer rainfall event. The experiment took place in the summer of 2004. | |||||||||
| Loaded up and ready to go... | |||||||||
| Arrived at the site to a stormy sunset. | |||||||||
| Setting up the irrigation gear and transferring water from the 16,000 liter delivery tanker. | |||||||||
| Filled tanks and storage pool. | |||||||||
| Water was pumped from the tanks into 600ft of fire hose trunk-line laid out across the woodland. | |||||||||
| We ran 100ft hoses from taps set into the fire hose trunk-line. These hoses were moved from tree to tree. | |||||||||
| That evening we begun irrigation and planned to irrigate through the night. | |||||||||
| However, rain showers and lighting interfered with this plan. | |||||||||
| Waiting for the rain to pass and to assess the situation. | |||||||||
| As the storm passed, we were treated to a spetacular sunset. It had rained 5mm in little over an hour, not a big event. Based on this we decided to go ahead. | |||||||||
| However, we were again kept at bay by a lightning storm. Standing out in the open waving a metal hose wand around was deemed not to be the brightest idea, so we waited it out in camp. | |||||||||
| We got back out there at 4am to finish the irrigation before the evaporative demand got too high. | |||||||||
| After the previous setbacks, things went really smoothly. We finished the irrigation just after the sun came up. | |||||||||
| The group after finishing the job (from left): Erin, Adam, Kevin, Josh, Andy and Tim. | |||||||||
| A big thanks to all those who braved the heat, the rain and lightning and the sleepless nights to make this experiment a success. Special thanks to Tim Jackson (Mr. Irrigation) and Kevin Hultine. | |||||||||