GROWTH MODELS FOR PRODUCTION PLANNING

For production planning in greenhouses growth models are developed at a high abstraction level, which consider the entire plant and all the main growth factors.
By means of growing plants in greenhouses under conditions approaching practice, but at various levels of temperature, radiation and CO₂-concentration, growth parameters have been ascertained.
Other important factors are kept within optimal range.

The mean growth rates (from emergence or planting up to harvesting, fig.1) are related to the mean intensity values of the growth factors by response surface calculation (fig.2). An iteration algorithm (fig.3) allows scientists to compute the growth period as a function of outside climatic conditions, of the dates of emergence/planting or harvesting, of the size of the transplant or of the plant at harvest stage and of the set points of the controlled growth factors (temperature, CO₂, figure4). These data allow both timing and calculation of the output minus energy costs as a preliminary economic criterion (fig.5).

Symposium Greenhouse Climate and its Control

H. Krug

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1985.174.29