Rick
Well-Known Member
'You a gambler, Rick?
No but live for ulcers
At least the significant summer power outages normally are from big thunder storms when there is cloud cover, so the odds of a 130 degree meltdown are pretty low.
Growers: How Are you Dealing With the Heat?
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No but live for ulcers
At least the significant summer power outages normally are from big thunder storms when there is cloud cover, so the odds of a 130 degree meltdown are pretty low.
paphioboy
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It gets up to 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit for all you Americans ) in summer here in Adelaide (not now, around December to February). Most growers here just use shadecloth for cyms, zygos, dends and some paphs (insigne, spicer etc..) and they seem to survive the heat just fine... Crowd the plants together and damp down frequently. That should help them weather through the heat..
Alex is in Italy, I believe...
) in summer here in Adelaide (not now, around December to February). Most growers here just use shadecloth for cyms, zygos, dends and some paphs (insigne, spicer etc..) and they seem to survive the heat just fine... Crowd the plants together and damp down frequently. That should help them weather through the heat.. Alex is in Italy, I believe...
emydura
Well-Known Member
If you can keep the air humid the plants will withstand the heat better. That can be difficult here in Canberra where the humidity in summer is often below 10%. The fogger comes in handy on days like this. We had one summer day where the temperature was well over 40oC. The hottest Canberra day I have experienced. Many local orchid growers lost a lot of plants. Even on this day my glasshouse barely went above 30oC. My fogger ran for four or five hours straight though without stopping.
David
David
It gets up to 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit for all you Americans
Alex is in Italy, I believe...
In Hanoi we got crazy weather here too... Until last year I was quite afraid of the temperatures, however I found that many plant take very high temperature here ( 36celsius day, 28-30 night) if they have a very good root system. I do not restrain the fertilizer, but the trend is to increase the potassium and ammonium, and lower drastically the nitrate ( for those who still use it). It makes a nice dark green plant with good leaves. For unknown reasons, nitrate + high temps = very yellow washed out leaves, but ammonium is fine, and the plant anyway need a nitrogen source somewhere. I have a highland place too where it's still cool...
The other trend is to use shadecloth WELL ABOVE the greenhouses, over a meter. That's what they do in Thailand and Malaysia. If you put the shading too close to the greenhouse you still get residual heat captured by the shade cloth (maybe not aluminium, I am not experienced with that one, but black one, that's sure...), and in fact it can be warmer than without a shadecloth.
emydura
Well-Known Member
I think that is important too. My shadecloth sits a fair distance from the glass. Not a metre though.
David
I had a 100' tall tulip poplar taken down a couple of weeks ago (was struck by lightning and was dying), and it was my "shade cloth".
Despite lots of ventilation and a Jaybird fogger, i did get some slight burning on a few plants. Fortunately, the Aluminet came in and i was able to get it installed last week.
Separation between the glazing and shadecloth is not as important with Aluminet as with others. Being aluminized Mylar, it tends to reflect the light, rather than absorbing it and turning it into heat, which is what happens with pigmented shadecloths. I noted a 10°F interior temperature drop within 30 minutes of installation.
Despite lots of ventilation and a Jaybird fogger, i did get some slight burning on a few plants. Fortunately, the Aluminet came in and i was able to get it installed last week.
Separation between the glazing and shadecloth is not as important with Aluminet as with others. Being aluminized Mylar, it tends to reflect the light, rather than absorbing it and turning it into heat, which is what happens with pigmented shadecloths. I noted a 10°F interior temperature drop within 30 minutes of installation.
Rick
Well-Known Member
More water to pots, more misting, move some cool growers into the AC bedroom. . Lock the cat in the air conditioned bedroom and open the windows for more cross ventilation...
G
goldenrose
Guest
The plants seem to be dealing with the heat better than I am!
I have 6 small fans in my 8' x 12' GH plus the exhaust fan, I've now added 2 more fans. I use 6-9" fans as I can place them in nooks & get better air movement thruout the whole GH. The aluminet stays on 24/7, the GH is shaded by trees from about 1:30 on and normally I would raise it but not now. About a dozen plants have been moved outside to protected areas to allow more air circulation in between plants inside the GH. I have supplemental flourescent lights under the one row of benches, seedlings & compots are there, those lights have been turned off. Fertilizer has been reduced except on the high light plants or heavy feeders.
I'd start the rain dance but it's too darn hot & humid to exert that amount of energy!
I have 6 small fans in my 8' x 12' GH plus the exhaust fan, I've now added 2 more fans. I use 6-9" fans as I can place them in nooks & get better air movement thruout the whole GH. The aluminet stays on 24/7, the GH is shaded by trees from about 1:30 on and normally I would raise it but not now. About a dozen plants have been moved outside to protected areas to allow more air circulation in between plants inside the GH. I have supplemental flourescent lights under the one row of benches, seedlings & compots are there, those lights have been turned off. Fertilizer has been reduced except on the high light plants or heavy feeders.
I'd start the rain dance but it's too darn hot & humid to exert that amount of energy!
John M
Orchid Addict
My greenhouse is double poly inflated plastic with 50% black knitted shade cloth tied down tightly right against the plastic on the outside. Zero air space. The greenhouse is 30' wide and 48' long. There is a 4' x 24' vent in the back and a 48" exahaust fan in the middle at the front. Other than one dead spot (at the front on the west side), that heats up a bit too much, the temps inside are kept at no higher than the temps outside with this size of exhaust fan. Today....in fact, in a few minutes, I'm going out to instal a sprayer line that will spray a heavy mist accross the entire back vent opening, which will cool the air a bit as it is drawn in by the exhaust fan at the other end. I've got a stream near the greenhouse to draw the water from; so, I don't need to worry about collecting the water and recycling it. I call it a poor man's evaporative cooler. Since today is going up to 39*C (!!!), I think I need to do this. I've got a lot of Disas that I'm concerned about and hundreds of Vandas that I don't want to blast their buds. I find that the Vandas stop growing when it gets too hot.
I installed a small air conditioner in the basement in the growing area.
My Paphs don't seem to hate hot weather but many other dislike it... Except my 3 Lippewunder. Lots of stress last summer.
Masdevallias and Intergeneric ondicium were a pity last year.
Some Phrags are tricky about hot weather here. My popowii was not very happy last year. Now it is OK. I put the pot in larger pot filled with wet moss. Same for Masds. Seems to help a lot. And since I now have an air conditioner...
A question about fogger: is it very effective when RH is high?
My Paphs don't seem to hate hot weather but many other dislike it... Except my 3 Lippewunder. Lots of stress last summer.
Masdevallias and Intergeneric ondicium were a pity last year.
Some Phrags are tricky about hot weather here. My popowii was not very happy last year. Now it is OK. I put the pot in larger pot filled with wet moss. Same for Masds. Seems to help a lot. And since I now have an air conditioner...
A question about fogger: is it very effective when RH is high?
John M
Orchid Addict
No but live for ulcers
At least the significant summer power outages normally are from big thunder storms when there is cloud cover, so the odds of a 130 degree meltdown are pretty low.
Hmmmm? Seems that the answer is "Yes", you are a gambler! Well, it's none of my business; but, unless Murphy's Law doesn't apply in Tennessee, I'd be worried sick. What about power outages in the winter when it's below freezing? FWIW, calculating that the odds of anything bad happening (were very low), was what I did the night my greenhouse froze. I had taken my back-up heater offline for repairs for just one night. I was in the middle of a maintenance / repair job when it got dark and I didn't want to have to haul lights down to the heater to finish. I figured I'd just leave the back-up heater offline that one night and finish the job the next day. That was the night that for the first time in 15 years, the thermocouple on my other heater gave up and the pilot light went out. When I went to the greenhouse the next morning, I found that it had frozen overnight. I wish you luck!
Rick
Well-Known Member
I'm in much better shape for winter. My base heating is electric, but I have a freestanding, non-electric propane heater with enough BTU to handle the whole GH should I loose power (yes, would be better with fans for circulation). I check the opperation of the propane heater and keep it running (at minimum levels) throughout the cold season. I recently got a small gas generator that could handle fans that needs a tune up, but it doesn't have an auto start. My wife is generally not to far from home to give me alerts to outages when I'm at work.
I do have telemetry to get temps in the house from the GH at night. But no auto dial to my cell phone to alert me at work.
It's not perfect, but getting there. Also compared to Canada we don't get the severe cold (neither depth nor duration) that you have up North.
Having a back up auto generator to run circulatory fans is the ultimate goal to covering both summer and winter power outages.
Well, my high temp. alarm went off in the greenhouse at 2 P.M. today. It was set at 105 degrees. My wife was home and there really wasn't much anyone could do. All the vents where open and locked opened since yesterday. All 4 fans on the rafters where running as was the box fan on the floor. My high low temperature alarm is hooked into my house alarm. They called my home as the first # on the call list and Donna asked them to disarm the alarm for a couple of days. Luckily we don't get too many days of heat like this.
I worry more about the winter but do have a southern burner backup furnace with the pilot light burning as well as a generator that runs on propane and turns on as soon as we lose power for 5 seconds. I've learned from John M. and I would hope others do as well.
I worry more about the winter but do have a southern burner backup furnace with the pilot light burning as well as a generator that runs on propane and turns on as soon as we lose power for 5 seconds. I've learned from John M. and I would hope others do as well.
Rick
Well-Known Member
If the ambient temp of the input water is already high and the RH is greater than 80% then you will get minimum cooling.
But generally the fogger is fed by a cooler water source, and typically you would have ventilators sucking in relatively dry air from outside at <80% RH.
So fogging is normally pretty effective.
John M
Orchid Addict
I need to update my auto start generator. Mine is a dinosaur! Could you tell me more about yours, please?
G
goldenrose
Guest
Relief!
The rolling thunder & lightning woke me up early this am, then came the much needed rain - over an inch! Now let's hope the sun doesn't come out!
The rolling thunder & lightning woke me up early this am, then came the much needed rain - over an inch! Now let's hope the sun doesn't come out!
thank you Rick for your explaination.
That is what I thought... It would not be effective in the room where my orchids grow. HR can be higher thant 80% all day long for a few months and I am concern about disease.
Air conditionner seems to do a good job for me. And HR is now lower..... 60 to 70%! Not too low. Unfortunatly it is an energy consuming solution.
Minimum 29°C at wake-up this morning in my house. I've become a real fan of the man who invented the fan.
