Greenhouse Temperature Maintenance
Greenhouse Heating and Cooling Environmental Control Systems
Computer Assisted Environmental Control Dashboard - With the huge volume of data coming in through sensors in different zones of the greenhouse, computers help collect, store, display, analyze, and predict multiple parameters influencing the greenhouse environment. In addition, they assist in the control of that environment and can, of course, be used for budgets and labor resources.
Greenhouses and similar controlled environments for plant growth are predominantly employed for off-season or extended season crop growth or even crop cultivation in otherwise unsuitable climates. Temperatures are maintained and controlled in greenhouse environments to satisfy plant growth requirements and optimize greenhouse crop production whilst minimizing costs within operating budgets. Incoming solar radiation and the greenhouse effect (incoming heat energy is greater than outgoing) are part of the energy equation such that cooling, even during the winter in cold climates, can be a necessity.
Computers and Climate Control in the Greenhouse
Environmental control systems of many large, commercial greenhouses employ computers and electronic equipment to monitor and control heating and cooling as well as: roof and side-wall ventilation, convection, natural air movement, soil moisture, humidity, CO2 levels, mist, fog, irrigation, fertilizers, supplemental lighting, shading, pH, thermal curtains, etc. Sensors and computers respond to the crop requirements for different zones of the greenhouse and even individual plants. Various zones in the greenhouse are automated based on internal, scheduled, and external factors. Centralized computer systems and/or web applications yield a preferred all-in-one management system for crop yields, as well as, energy management, zoning control, greenhouse operation budgets, greenhouse worker management, etc.
Various events are triggered to react to combinations of measurement thresholds. For example, if the temperature reaches a certain level, the incoming sunlight is measured at a certain level and the moisture has dropped to a certain level, events can be triggered. Maybe the misting system will turn on in one zone and a supervisor will get some type of alarm email. An aspirated thermostat and a humidistat can feed data into a computer which may trigger louvers and fan ventilation or high pressure fog cooling. Computer systems often hold the greenhouse managers preferences for triggers on different events in an online database. Such databases can accumulate large amounts of historical data for the greenhouse to power graphs and other tools of analysis.