The Blandy Experimental Farm is a relocatable terrestrial site and part of NEON's Mid-Atlantic Domain2. BLAN is located in Clarke County, Virginia, and is 60 miles west of Washington, D.C. NEON's Blandy site is technically subdivided between two locations, Blandy Experimental Farm and Casey Tree Farm, to meet the needs of NEON's Distributed Plot activities. The Casey Tree Farm is located 10 km northeast of the tower, and land use includes a similar mix of woodland, hay fields, and tree nurseries. NEON samples 2.7 km^2 at the Blandy Experimental Farm and 3 km^2 at the Casey Tree Farm. This region is encompassed within NEON's Mid-Atlantic Domain and is bordered by the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains on the west and the Atlantic Ocean on the east. This is a densely populated region; and general land use types include successional fields, pastures, woodlands, and small ponds. The Mid-Atlantic Domain hosts four other NEON sites, two aquatic and two terrestrial, all of which are located in Virginia. Remote sensing surveys of this field site collect lidar, spectrometer and high-resolution RGB camera data.
The flux/meteorological tower at this site is 26 with 4 measurement levels. The tower top extends above the vegetation canopy to allow sensors mounted at the top and along the tower to capture the full profile of atmospheric conditions from the top of the vegetation canopy to the ground. The tower collects physical and chemical properties of atmosphere-related processes, such as humidity, wind, and net ecosystem gas exchange. Precipitation data are collected by a tipping bucket at the top of the tower and a series of throughfalls located in the soil array. There are also multiple plots for soil sensors and sampling and organismal sampling including birds, ticks, mammals, ground beetles, soil microbes, and mosquitoes. Total data products planned for this site: 113
