RADIATION TRANSMISSION DIFFERENCES IN EAST-WEST ORIENTED PLASTIC GREENHOUSES

In the Mediterranean coastal area of Spain there is an increasing trend to improve the technological level of the greenhouse industry, based on low-cost plastic greenhouses with very small roof slopes.
In recent years, the growers are beginning to build east-west oriented plastic greenhouses with saddle roofs of higher slopes.
This east-west orientation improves the greenhouse transmission in the autumn and winter, compared to the north-south orientation, but generates radiation transmission differences within the different zones of the greenhouse.
A first study on radiation transmission differences, using scale models and monitored at eave height between the various spans of east-west oriented multi span greenhouses, showed relevant differences with higher transmission in the southern located span during winter solstice.
These results point out that conclusions of radiation studies on single span greenhouses are not suitable for multispans.
A second study on the spatial uniformity of radiation throughout the spans of three different roof geometry multispan greenhouses, east-west oriented, quantified using linear solarimeters at the eave level and shows relevant differences along the transversal section of the span.

XXVI International Horticultural Congress: Protected Cultivation 2002: In Search of Structures, Systems and Plant Materials for Sustainable Greenhouse Production

T. Soriano, J. Hernández, M.I. Morales, I. Escobar, N. Castilla

transmissivity, radiation uniformity, multispan, scale-model, asymmetrical greenhouse

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2004.633.10