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Horticulture Principles and Practices

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FIGURE 7 Contributions to<br />

the heat requirements predicted<br />

for various months. (Source: A.J.<br />

Both <strong>and</strong> D.R. Mears)<br />

require 43,580 BTU/ft 2 per year <strong>and</strong> the heat pump with a heating capacity of 3.4<br />

BTU/(hr*ft 2 ) would collect 5,509 BTU/ft 2 per year when doing internal cooling <strong>and</strong> another<br />

11,221 BTU/ft 2 per year from a well for a total contribution of 38% of the annual requirement.<br />

The cooling capacity corresponds to the requirement for first stage cooling.<br />

SUMMARY<br />

There are substantial differences in the energy requirements of commercial greenhouses<br />

determined in large part by the design of the facility but also influenced by the maintenance<br />

<strong>and</strong> management strategies. These differences are so significant that examples can<br />

be found in commercial practice where energy consumption per unit growing area will<br />

be at least ten times as great as could be achieved. There are excellent sources of information<br />

with specific application to various types of greenhouse operations <strong>and</strong> increasingly<br />

this information can be found on websites <strong>and</strong> some of these will be periodically<br />

updated as new information becomes available.<br />

Beyond the application of the best design <strong>and</strong> management practices <strong>and</strong> the consistent<br />

following of maintenance procedures there are also alternatives to fossil fuel consumption<br />

that can be pursued <strong>and</strong> it can be expected that practical examples will increase as new<br />

ideas are further refined <strong>and</strong> developed <strong>and</strong> the relative price of natural gas <strong>and</strong> oil continue<br />

to escalate. There have been many practical demonstrations of systems burning alternative<br />

fuels whose economics depend on the facility designed to take advantage of the fuel <strong>and</strong><br />

its availability <strong>and</strong> cost. Beyond that further development of alternative energy systems can<br />

be expected. Several potential systems mentioned above have been analyzed well enough<br />

to show progress <strong>and</strong> hopefully will be evaluated on a commercial scale.<br />

REFERENCES<br />

___________ Rutgers University Horticultural Engineering Website:<br />

http://aesop.rutgers.edu/~horteng/<br />

Bartok, J.W. Jr., 2001. Energy Conservation for Commercial Greenhouses. NRAES-3.<br />

NRAES, Ithaca, NY.<br />

Both, A.J., D.R. Mears, T.O. Manning, E. Reiss <strong>and</strong> P.P. Ling. 2007. Evaluating energy<br />

savings strategies using heat pumps <strong>and</strong> energy storage for greenhouses. ASABE<br />

Paper No. 074011. ASABE, 2950 Niles Road, St. Joseph, MI 49085-9659.<br />

416 Chapter 12 Controlled-Environment <strong>Horticulture</strong>

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