It’s been a little while since our last field update—but while the blog took a break, the crops certainly did not!
Since our last post, the Water-Food Futures field experiment in Hyvinkää has moved through some of the most important stages of the growing season. The small plants we were watching earlier in the summer have grown, developed, and, in some cases, are now approaching maturity.
As the season progressed and the crops moved from early growth towards maturity, we continued collecting measurements to follow their development and the conditions shaping it.
Here’s a glimpse of what’s been happening in the field.
Following growth, one measurement at a time
Early in the season, one of the simplest measurements can tell us a great deal: how tall are the plants becoming?
It’s a simple ruler-and-notebook job, but it tells us a lot: how fast the crops are growing, and how that growth compares across the different field conditions we’re testing.
Looking at the green within
A healthy green leaf can reveal more than meets the eye. With a handheld chlorophyll meter, we clip onto a leaf and get an instant reading of its chlorophyll content—repeated throughout crop development to track how it changes.
Chlorophyll is closely tied to photosynthesis, so a paler leaf can be an early clue that a plant is under stress—whether from too little water, too much, or something else entirely. It’s a fast, non-destructive way to check in on how the plants are coping as the season goes on.
Meanwhile, beneath the surface…
Not everything important in a crop field can be seen above ground.
Throughout the experiment, sensors buried in the soil keep track of soil moisture and temperature around the clock—including nights, weekends, and everything in between. All of that gets stored in dataloggers, which we periodically connect to and download, turning weeks of quiet readings into a detailed record of how conditions below ground have shifted over time.
Taking a closer look at the soil
Sometimes sensors are not enough—we also need to get our hands on the soil itself.
With a metal corer and a mallet, we drive straight down into the ground and pull up an intact core of soil—a physical sample that can tell us things sensors can’t, and helps confirm what the sensors are already telling us.
And then… the field transformed
Fast-forward through the growing season and the change is remarkable.
The small plants measured earlier in the experiment developed into dense stands of camelina, showing just how much can happen in a field over a relatively short Finnish summer.
The oats followed their own journey too, developing from young plants into a well-established crop as they progressed towards maturity.
Underneath this visible growth, our sensors, soil measurements and field observations continued building a much less visible—but equally important—story of how the crops and their environment changed throughout the season.
More than just watching crops grow
What’s shown here is only part of the picture—we collect plenty more measurements than we could ever fit into one blog post. Following a crop through an entire growing season is a bit like assembling a puzzle: every measurement is one more piece.
It’s only once we start fitting those pieces together that we can really see how the crops are responding to their environment—and to the different water conditions we’ve set up across the trial.
So although you haven’t heard from us for a few weeks, there has been plenty happening in Hyvinkää.
And there’s still more of the story to tell.
Jimmy Awori
Postdoctoral researcher
University of Helsinki