Monitor Tree Seedling Temperature Inexpensively With the Thermochron iButton® Data Logger
Monitoring the storage and shipping environments of planting stock is inexpensive with the $10 button-size temperaturerecording device called an iButton®. Setting data collection parameters and downloading data are easy and require only a $15 iButton receptor that plugs into a COM port and uses free software. Tree Planters' Notes 50(1): 14-17; 2003. Tracking tree seedling temperature from the nursery to the planting site can be the key to evaluating possible physiological causes of seedling mortality after outplanting. Seedlings enter and leave nursery storage with easily documented levels of cold hardiness, root growth potential, and general stress tolerance (Burr 1990; Ritchie and Tanaka 1990). The temperatures and the durations to which seedlings are exposed to them after leaving the nursery can dramatically alter these physiological quality attributes. This may occur directly by impacting tissue viability, or indirectly by affecting respiration, transpiration, and plant water relations. To determine how the environment may have interacted with seedling physiology and affected outplanting survival and performance, the environment must be measured. This can be accomplished easily and inexpensively with the Thermochron iButton® data logger manufactured by Dallas Semiconductor Corporation1 .
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Author(s): David S. Gasvoda, Richard W. Tinus, Karen E. Burr
Publication: Tree Planters' Notes - Volumes 50, Number 1 (2003)
Volume: 50
Number: 1
