A perfect balance between screen position, pipe temperature, humidity level and greenhouse temperature – at Dutch tomato nursery Fresunto, grower Richard Juffer is skilfully using the extensive setting options in Ridder Synopta.
Artificially-lit crops
Richard Juffer is responsible for cultivation at Fresunto’s 10-hectare (25-acre) greenhouse in Luttelgeest, the Netherlands. Sunstream mini-plum tomatoes are grown under lighting all year round – a heat-intensive crop that requires a lot of energy to produce. In dark and cold periods, the energy screen and light restriction screens are employed frequently. Juffer uses the My Influences module in its Ridder Synopta control software to customize the greenhouse settings for maximum growth and energy efficiency. For example, Fresunto uses My Influences to create ‘smart’ settings in the Ridder Synopta software. These settings allow the MultiMa climate computer to control the humidity inside the greenhouse more easily and more effectively.
Create your own influences in the software
My Influences is a flexible software module that enables growers to add extra variable influences to the setpoint graphs in Ridder Synopta. Fresunto uses this feature to remove moisture from the greenhouse when the lighting system is active based on the minimum pipe temperature. With the My Influences module, grower Richard Juffer has created an extra variable that calculates the average of all pipe temperatures. “This average influences the gap setting for the light restriction screen,” he explains. “When there is a risk that the average pipe temperature will drop to 50 degrees, the screen gap may be slightly increased; and when the pipe temperature rises back up to 60 degrees, the screen gap may be slightly reduced, to 98%.”
Saves a lot of time
By influencing the screen gap with My Influences, the grower is able to actively remove the moisture from the greenhouse. When the minimum pipe temperature is reached, the temperature at the bottom of the crop is high enough and a screen gap can be applied. As soon as the temperature in the greenhouse drops, and the pipe temperature rises back up, the gap automatically becomes smaller again. “With My Influences, this process can be automated because you can add an extra influence yourself. As a result, we do not have to make constant adjustments, which saves a lot of time programming the settings. We now have more stable control of the humidity level in our greenhouse, which ultimately results in a better quality product and higher production levels.”
