Greenhouse Misting System.
When you own a greenhouse you will probably know that there are many factors that can affect the growth and development of your plants. You need a good balance of air circulation, ventilation, heating, shading and humidity to provide your plants with and optimum growing environment.
Lets talk about misting.
Ventilation and shading are very important factors when it comes to overheating the climate in the greenhouse, but a proper control of the humidity or so called greenhouse misting is the main factor for a comfortable environment for cultivating your plants. Evaporation cools down the greenhouse by turning liquid water into a form of gas. When you start to ventilate your greenhouse you’ll be losing all that moisture because it will vanish into air. With misting you can replace that moisture.
How much moisture you need to maintain your greenhouse depends on a number of factors. These factors are your local weather, how ventilated your greenhouse is and how much shading you have provided. There is a rule of thumb which says that for every 10 square feet of greenhouse, there should be 1-2 gallons per hour of moisture.
If you have a good misting system then you should have no problem distributing the moisture evenly over the greenhouse. It will also distribute the water so that the plants in the greenhouse don’t get soaked. If done right misting can bring back the temperature to 25 degrees Fahrenheit, which is around 14 degrees Celsius.
Facts about misting systems:
-You can place a misting system to disperse water in a very fine mist or in a coarse spray. It depends on the measurement of the droplets on the nozzle and the water pressure.
-Most of the misting systems are connected to pumps that are designed for intermittent or continuous duty. The intermittent pumps are built to spray water every 5 minutes and rest 60 seconds between misting.
-The newer misting systems come with timers that you can program to mist between 1 and 24 times a day, and each misting can take up to 24 minutes. This system will take a lot of manual work out of the greenhouse owner’s hands.
-You can calculate the amount of water you need to maximize the efficiency of your misting system. It can be calculated by multiplying the nozzle flow per minute by the number of nozzles you have in your system and the outcome of that calculation needs to be multiplied again by the operating moisture per day of your misting system. In this way you can have a good estimate of how much water you are going to need for the system.
-If you do not want a misting system then there is another solution and that is an evaporative cooler. These coolers preform really well in dry climates where humidity is below 50%. An evaporative cooler will cool the air by 10 to 20 degrees with the use of the water that has been drawn through the cooler. Keep in mind that too much humidity is never good for your plants (or you must be growing plants from the rain forest).
-If you use a cooler or a misting system you will need a tool which can measure the humidity inside your greenhouse. It will keep you informed about the level of humidity.
There are so many factors you need to take into account when you start growing plants in your greenhouse and misting is just one of them, but nevertheless it should not be underestimated as it will provide the much needed cooling for your plants. Using a misting system can really boost the quality of your harvest by 20%.
