Instructor:

Tim Martin
359 Newins-Ziegler Hall
846-0866
tamartin@ufl.edu
Course web site: http://www.sfrc.ufl.edu/class/FOR6345/

Schedule:

Course description:

This two credit course will focus on instruments and techniques used to quantify water balance and status in plants in the field.  Emphasis will be placed on the theory, assumptions, advantages and shortcomings of various measurement techniques. Course actitivies will include discussions, laboratory exercises, problem sets, and a final term paper or comprehensive exam. To ensure a "hands-on" experience, class enrollment will be capped at 10 students.

Topics to be covered will include:

* Water status measurements with the Scholander pressure chamber, including leaf water potential and pressure-volume curves.
* Tree xylem water flux measurements using thermal methods.  Techniques for building, installing and analyzing data from heat dissipation probes.
* Leaf transpiration and stomatal conductance measurements with porometry.
* Xylem hydraulic conductivity measurements.
*  Using double-ended pressure chambers to generate xylem vulnerability curves.

* Overview of soil moisture quantification methods.
* Installing, programming and operating Campbell Scientific dataloggers.

Syllabus (Adobe Acrobat pdf file)

Readings, Background Material, and Useful Links

Class Handouts