Microclimatic behavior of a screen house proposed for horticultural production in low-altitude tropical climate conditions

Abstract

In developing countries, horticultural production in low-altitude tropical climate conditions is often limited by biotic and abiotic factors. In these countries, the implementation of highly technical greenhouses is not feasible due to economic, social and cultural issues related to farmers. Therefore, one of the alternatives that has taken a great boom is the use of screen house structures (SH), although information on the microclimatic behavior of these is still limited. The objective of this research was to use an experimentally validated 3D CFD numerical simulation model to study the thermal behavior and airflow patterns in an SH located in the Colombian Caribbean region during the daytime hours (6:00 to18:00 h). The results obtained showed that the air flow patterns inside the SH showed speed reductions of up to 68% with respect to the speed of the external wind. It was also found that the thermal behavior inside the SH was quite homogeneous, the average temperature values in the structures ranged between 23.9 and 39 °C and the difference with external environment temperature did not exceed 1.8 °C. It was concluded that the implementation of this type of structure could be an useful technological tool for the optimization of horticultural production in low-altitude tropical climate regions.

Research on the Microclimate of Protected Agriculture Structures Using Numerical Simulation Tools: A Technical and Bibliometric Analysis as a Contribution to the Sustainability of Under-Cover Cropping in Tropical and Subtropical Countries

“…Another covering material primarily used in screenhouses is the porous insect-proof screen, which is a material widely used in hot climate regions where rainfall is scarce or occurs during very specific times of the year. In warm weather conditions, the spatial behavior of the temperature under this material is homogeneous and does not differ greatly from the outside temperature, with a thermal differential of only 1.7 • C [164]. However, it should be mentioned that the selection of the porous mesh at commercial level should be made taking into account the degree of control efficiency with respect to the main insect pests to be controlled and the level of restriction of the natural ventilation of the structure [122].…”

“…Simplified method 62 [19,32,[37][38][39]46,49,76,78,83,91,95,99,100,106,[108][109][110][111][113][114][115][116][120][121][122][123]126,129,131,133,136,[141][142][143][144][145][146][147][148][149]151,[153][154][155][156][159][160][161][163][164]…”

“…Current and future research trends include a growing interest on the part of growers to establish their crops in insect-proof screenhouses [204,205]. Therefore, this is a topic of interest that may have further developments in the coming years, focusing on the search for structural mesh lattices that allow the greatest control of pest insects with the least possible impact on air flow patterns and the homogeneity of the microclimate [164]. In addition, this type of screenhouse structure should have some type of simple structure inside to limit the water fall on the leaves of the plants and, thus, allow horticultural production during the rainy seasons of the year [125].…”

Contribution to the Sustainability of Agricultural Production in Greenhouses Built on Slope Soils: A Numerical Study of the Microclimatic Behavior of a Typical Colombian Structure

“…Temperature is one of the main microclimate variables directly involved in the growth and development of most crops of commercial and food interest, and this variable also affects the photosynthetic activity of the plant and the quality of the final product. For this reason it is one of the most studied microclimate variables inside greenhouses [63,66].…”

Thermal Simulation of a Screenhouse Proposed for Fruit and Vegetable Production in the Lowlands of Panama

“…Currently, there are no CFD studies applied to this area of knowledge developed in Panama. However, at the regional level, in the last three years there has been some research carried out in Costa Rica [29], Colombia [28] and Dominican Republic [30]. Such studies allowed to optimize the microclimatic behavior in screenhouses structures established in warm climate regions.…”