MILWAUKEE — Desert Aire has published a new technical resource that details the environmental control needs of grow rooms and indoor farms and the reasons for the success of Desert Aire’s purpose-built, dehumidification-based GrowAire™ systems.
“Application Note 26 — Grow Room Environmental Control” is a publication that supports professionals with HVAC system design interests in the cannabis and indoor farming industries. The application note discusses plant requirements relating to photosynthesis and transpiration, the intertwined processes plants use to feed themselves and carry nutrients throughout their tissues. It also outlines the vital role played by vapor pressure differentials, also known as vapor pressure deficits, in driving transpiration and providing the forces for nutrients to be brought from roots to the upper areas of plants.
Growers that use air conditioners and small portable dehumidifiers for HVAC systems are more likely to create problems for themselves as this approach typically leads to constantly fluctuating temperature and relative humidity — a result of the air conditioners and dehumidifiers not being controlled together.
The application note identifies constant dew point temperatures as the key metric in creating vapor pressure deficits for healthy plant growth. Desert Aire’s GrowAire systems convert setpoint and sensor values internally to dewpoints. Since dewpoints are direct measurements of the total moisture contents in air, dewpoints provide more stable values and are more representative of the required changes in operating modes or stages of GrowAire systems. Because GrowAire controllers are looking at both temperatures and absolute humidity values, they can eliminate the wild swings of conventional systems.
For more information or to download “Application Note 26 — Grow Room Environmental Control,” visit desert-aire.com.
Publication date: 3/29/2017
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