SoDa:: Services for Professionals in Solar Energy and Radiation

Case Studies - Vegetation - Agriculture -Horticulture - PAR

Light is essential for plant growth. Natural sunlight is the cheapest source available but for horticulture it is not always available in sufficient quantities. Especially in regions between 40 and 80 degrees latitude the amount of daylight required for good plant growth is limited during the winter. Therefore, during this period, the use of artificial light has become very common in greenhouses to increase production and quality. Philips is a company specialized in technology with a very strong lighting division. Philips is the world wide leader in offering horticultural lamps for the use of supplemental light in greenhouses. Sander Pot, an Application Specialist Horticulture at Philips Lighting Professional Lamps, wrote: "The use of supplemental light is depending on many variables and the availability of natural daylight (global radiation) is one of them. When global radiation is lacking for good plant growth or for maintaining quality as it is often the case during winter, we can calculate how much artificial growthlight should be supplemented based on the need of the specific crop. Accurate knowledge about the amount of natural radiatiation is in this case essential. In horticultural areas this knowledge is often available since growers are using solarimeters on the top of their greenhouses. However in many areas, where horticulture is less developed or for potentional new horticultural areas, this information is not available or at least hard to get. For obtaining this information the use of the SoDa Service has shown to be vey useful". Date: May 2006.

Peter Stradiot is an agronomist, consultant for several international projects. His company Innogreen has a long experience in greenhouse growing, world wide. It exploits the SoDa Service on a regular basis for tomato growing. Irrigation of plants is controlled by the quantity of radiation received during a week. The use of the SoDa Service permits to avoid the installation of pyranometers on top of the greenhouses or to prepare projects for greenhouse installation. Date: January 2005.

Gertus De Sauvage is an engineer in his own company Sauvage Innovatie in The Netherlands. He is a consultant in horticulture. He wrote that the SoDa Service provides valuable information on radiation that should have application in greenhouses. Date: November 2002.