Category: Outreach

Shade screen and net are used to control the environment of plants growing in polytunnels and greenhouses but they have some unintended consequences in modifying the spectrum of light that plants receive.

Titta Kotilainen has a new article out describing these effects and what they imply for the use and selection of these products. Check it out in PLOS one – HERE!

We recently spent the week at GreenTech Expo in Amsterdam finding out more about innovations in LED lighting and spectral manipulation of the light used in plant production scenarios. In response we are preparing an extended a continuation of our research into spectral quality with an extended dataset of screen and net assessments.

 

Some results from our Academy of Finland Key Funding project were recently presented by Titta Kotilainen in the Finnish Growers’ Association “Puutarha & Kauppa” magazine. Climate screens that are typically used inside greenhouses to manage humidity and temperature alter light transmission, resulting in large differences in both the fraction of irradiance attenuated and spectral ratios received underneath.

Different climate-control screens, that are superficially very similar in terms of their appearance and texture, have very different effects on the light environment, which would go unnoticed without this sort of measurement. Spectral characterization of this nature is required to interpret the results of studies examining plant responses to different greenhouse screens. Material manufacturers, growers, and horticultural consultants can all benefit from these data aiding the selection of material to better match the desired end-results.