Design and implementation of a low-cost device for measuring sap flow in woody species1

Abstract

Transpiration is a key variable in water balance. Sap flow measurement methods allow to estimate transpiration at plant level, but scalable at the forest stand, river basin or ecosystem level. This requires recording data continuously, for which there are commercial devices, but they are specialized and expensive. This document shows that it is possible to integrate a data capture, management and storage system, as a counterpart to a commercial system such as Campbell’s CR-1000, for measuring and recording environmental variables, with a marked reduction in costs. This paper presents a methodology used to develop a device for the estimation of sap flow using the heat ratio method, the design of the Arduino-based electronic circuit and the software, with register 13-64-171 of the Dirección Nacional de Derechos de Autor.