Effect of diffusion properties of greenhouse covers on light balance in the shelters

✍ Scribed by P. Basiaux; J. Deltour; A. Nisen

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1973
• Weight: 794 KB
• Volume: 11
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0002-1571
• DOI: 10.1016/0002-1571(73)90083-6

✦ Synopsis

Aiming to determine the adequacy of diffusing materials as cover for horticultural shelters, the authors survey the results of some already published works that deal with striated glass-covered greenhouses (computing and reduced sizes), before presenting the outlines of a work whose aim is to compute the luminous balance of a shelter relatively to the degree of diffusion of its cover.

When such a work is approached for the first time, restrictive hypotheses are imperative. However, in the case of semi-cylindrical tunnels covered with various types of plastic materials, the results made available through the computer programme considered are so much like those obtained through studies carried out on small-size striated glass-covered greenhouses that the authors consider them as a proof of the reliability of the work, the practical horticultural application of which appears to be possible.

They lay down the conditions of that practical use and warn advisers against an untimely use of such materials, and against an employment irrespective of those conditions and specially of the winter insolation of the considered area, of the orientation of the greenhouse or of the lay-out of plants within the shelter.