Dehumidification in Sealed Plant Rooms: Sizing the Load
Dehumidification in Sealed Plant Rooms: Sizing the Load A sealed room has no vents, so every kilogram of water transpired by the crop has to be removed by machine. Under-size the dehumidification duty and humidity climbs until leaf wetness and botrytis decide the crop cycle; over-size it and the lights cannot run cool enough to […]
Plant Factory vs Greenhouse: When a Sealed Room Pays
Plant Factory vs Greenhouse: When a Sealed Room Pays The plant factory vs greenhouse decision is usually framed as a technology choice. On a balance sheet it is a swap: free daylight traded for control, paid for in electricity and capital per square meter. A sealed room gives year-round output, repeatable quality and a site-independent […]
Rodent and Bird Control in Greenhouses and Pack Houses
Rodent and Bird Control in Greenhouses and Pack Houses Rodents and birds fail audits the same way they fail crops: evidence left in the open. A single dropping on a grading line, a chewed emitter or a nest in a heater house reads as lost control, and food safety standards treat it as a major […]
Farm Fertiliser Storage: Segregation, Shelf Life, Pallets
Fertiliser Storage on Farms: Segregation, Shelf Life, Pallets Fertiliser looks inert in the bag, and that assumption is what spoils it. Most salt losses on a hydroponic farm start in the store rather than the mixer: a pallet set against a cold outside wall, an open bag returned to service after a wet week, an […]
Nitric, Phosphoric or Sulphuric: Choosing a pH Acid
The pH down acid hydroponics suppliers deliver in 25-liter drums is usually picked at commissioning and never revisited, even after the water report changes. Nitric, phosphoric and sulfuric all move pH by the same mechanism and differ in what they leave behind: nitrogen, phosphorus or sulfur, each of which is already in the recipe. That […]
Alkalinity and Acid Demand in Hydroponic Water
Alkalinity in hydroponic water is measured once at commissioning, written on a whiteboard, and then quietly ignored until the acid bill doubles. Two farms on boreholes a few kilometers apart can both report pH 7.2 and still buy very different acid volumes every month, because pH describes the water at the moment of measurement and […]
Refurbishing an Older Hydroponic Greenhouse: What First
Greenhouse refurbishment almost always fails in the sequence rather than the budget. A ten-year-old house gets quoted for new film, gutters and a control refresh, the crew starts at the gable end, and by week three the rusted purlins behind the gutter and a settled slab under the center path are both discovered. Retrofit old […]
Surge Protection and UPS for Hydroponic Controllers
Surge protection for controllers is specified after the second failure on most farms, not the first. A storm passes, the climate computer returns on default setpoints, two EC probes read 0.4 mS/cm high for a week, and a dosing driver board dies three weeks later. The storm is blamed and the parts are replaced. What […]
Electrical Panel and Circuit Layout for Wet Greenhouse Areas
A greenhouse electrical panel spends its working life in a warm, chlorinated room that gets hosed down, and it is usually ordered last. That sequence explains most failures found on site: boards mounted within reach of a pressure washer, one large residual current device protecting a whole ventilation group, and cable trays sharing a route […]
Backup Generator Sizing for Hydroponic Farms: kW, Fuel Days
A hydroponic backup generator is sized in an afternoon and then lives on site for fifteen years on a load sheet nobody has updated since commissioning. The essential list is narrower than people expect: circulation pumps, aeration or the chiller, dosing injectors and control power. Supplemental lighting and pack-house machines can wait for the grid. […]