Comparing temperature patterns and local data for two Lonoke County rice fields

Author: Leo Black | Major: Biological Engineering | Fall 2022

My name is Leo Black, and I am studying Biological Engineering with an Environmental concentration. My ongoing research aims to evaluate the feasibility of supplementing current flooding methods – primarily surface water and groundwater – with rainwater to flood rice fields. The Alternate Wetting and Drying method (AWD), in which rice fields are flooded and then allowed to dry down and the soil allowed to oxidize, is the primary irrigation pattern of focus for the application of my research. My findings thus far have come from data on temperature and precipitation from Oregon State University’s PRISM Climate Group, storm event and comparative precipitation data from the National Weather Service, and rice growth data I collected in person over the course of Summer 2022.

Over the past year I have worked with Dr. Runkle in the Landscape Flux Group, a research group focused on sustainable rice farming practices, and my research thus far has been supported by the Honors College Research Grant over the Fall 2022 semester. I joined the Landscape Flux Group in October 2021 and had gained some familiarity with their research through my work on analysis and synthesis of data from the Summer 2021 growing season by the time I began my research project this past spring. Alongside Dr. Runkle, I was advised this semester by Dr. Beatriz Moreno Garcia, a postdoctoral engineering fellow and another member of the Landscape Flux Group. Both advisors encouraged me to apply for the grant in March, and recommended articles and reading material for a starting point. At the time, I was working with rainfall data from that season’s fields, and was inspired to incorporate that into a potential research topic. Given the wide breadth of irrigation methods and techniques – including continuous flooding, and cascade, multiple-inlet, and zero-grade irrigation, among others – I discussed this possibility with my advisors and narrowed my focus to rainfall in zero-grade, AWD fields.

In the processes of narrowing my topic and performing my research, I discovered a greater breadth to the topic of sustainable irrigation than I had realized or imagined. Even with a specific irrigation pattern and technique in mind, pinpointing one or two specific AWD fields to compare to one another posed a minor challenge. Gathering local data from the National Weather Service presented a greater hurdle, as several datasets were only available for certain cities, the closest of which was still at least ten miles from the fields themselves. Data precision and accuracy is limited for the fields’ precipitation data, even despite the volume of data itself. The greatest challenge in my research overall, though, was balancing it with other responsibilities, both academic and otherwise, and managing the subsequent stress of being overwhelmed. Consistent support and guidance from my mentors, though, made (and continues to make) the overall research process somewhat less daunting and more inspiring. In any case, I discovered in myself an even greater passion for improving sustainability, but in a field of study – no pun intended – that I might not have considered before.

While I did not travel during the fall semester to a conference or archive, I did spend the summer collecting rice growth data in Lonoke County, AR, including parameters such as leaf area index (LAI), canopy height, and water table height, that I have used and compiled for later, further use in this project. Having witnessed rice growth in real time and been able to directly compare fields under different irrigation conditions and techniques, I feel a greater grasp of and connection to the ways in which my research could be implemented in the real world. While I may not be a rice farmer myself, I understand the magnitude of impact that rainfall could have on reducing water use and associated costs, as well as on restoring depleted groundwater aquifers.

With the remaining two credit hours I have for my thesis project, I plan to dedicate my time to analyzing the findings from all of my compiled data, reading related articles and papers to pinpoint the applicability of my research, and, from there, drawing more concrete conclusions on how instrumental rainwater can truly be for future rice farming in our changing climate.