Agave Research Project Data

Current data uploaded through March 31, 2014 from our soil temperature monitors

Scroll through the graph to take a look at temperatures during each month, day, or hour of the year

All temperature recordings are displayed in degrees Celsius. Keep checking back in for the latest data!


Friday, April 11, 2014

Welcome to the Agave Research Blog

We have new data for January 1, 2014 through March 31, 2014. Use the graph at the top of the page to scroll through the temperature readings. Plots 1 (blue line) and 2 (red line) both contain rock piles and living agave.  Plot 3 (yellow line) is our control and has no rock pile. Temperature readings are recorded hourly at the approximate root level of the Agave plants using Thermochron iButton data loggers.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Our research...

Beginning May of 2012, the Deer Valley Rock Art Center started a new kind of exhibit that not only lets visitors learn about prehistoric agave cultivation here in the Phoenix Valley, but participate in our active agave research projects.  Right now, we are exploring agave rock piles and how/why they were used by prehistoric people around the Southwest to grow agaves.  To figure this out, we have been collecting soil temperature readings every hour in our own experimental rock piles to see if regulating soil temperature might play a role in why these rock piles were used.


Here are some photos of our experimental set up.  Stop on by the Deer Valley Rock Art Center to check it out or feel free to join the conversation about agave research here on the blog! 

Agaves in our experimental rock piles.


We are using iButton temperature sensors to record soil temperatures every hour.

Come by, read our visitor panel, and get involved in the conversation!