Hazelnut research to set bar for irrigation

Chad Higgins, an Oregon State University agricultural engineering professor, stands beneath a 30-foot steel tower in the middle of a hazelnut orchard a few miles southwest of Amity, and points up to a jaw-like contraption that looks like it should adorn the side of a spaceship.

These sensors, he says, will measure water that evaporates from the ground and the trees into the air from a 15-acre portion of the orchard.

At the base of the tower, wires snake into the dirt, measuring soil moisture. In a few weeks, young tree trunks will be pierced with sap sensors, measuring the moisture moving through the trees.

Higgins and his students are collecting the data to see what the hazelnut trees are doing in real time, hoping to establish guidelines that new hazelnut growers can use to plan the most efficient irrigation schedules in the Willamette Valley.

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