People who grow plants know that potting flowers or putting vegetables in a raised bed can yield great results. But what can one accomplish with containers that hold more than 85,000 pounds of soil? For a group of U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service scientists in Bushland, Texas, the answer is quite a lot because they use the enormous metal boxes to directly measure how much water crops are using. With that information, they can produce remarkably accurate recommendations on how much farmers should irrigate, providing a vast improvement over existing estimates.
Parched plants: How thirsty are your crops?
The above-ground portion of a lysimeter is visible in a field, where corn grows inside and outside of the device.
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