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Graduate student David Sullivan was a recent recipient for the Decagon Devices Grant A. Harris Research Instrumentation Fellowship.

The fellowship provides $30,000 worth of Decagon research instruments—$5,000 each—to six graduate students studying environmental or geotechnical science.

David is pursuing his Master’s Degree in Soil Science and started his journey with Puyallup Research & Extension during field season of 2015 with Dr. Doug Collins.

He is particularly interested in the effects of strip tillage and high residue cover crop mulch on water use efficiency and weed suppression in organic systems. His research for the award is titled “Strip tillage and cover cropping for enhanced water use efficiency in western Washington organic vegetable farms” and he hopes upon its completion there will be a clearer link between food, energy, and water which would help Northwestern farming systems become more resilient to climate change through better conservation of water resources.

“Our team is fortunate to use Decagon’s cellular loggers to irrigate based off the real-time moisture status in our trial, as it will reduce the amount of labor involved with monitoring our fields,” David said.  “This fellowship will allow us to improve the accuracy and relevance of our research, and I’m excited to share our findings with producers during our two field days this summer.”

We’re excited for you too David! And proud of your hard work here at Puyallup REC!