Temperature conditioning in ornamental plant production with a prototype device: root zone cooling in protected environments

One of the greatest growing costs in greenhouse floriculture is for energy. To reduce energy costs for thermal conditioning was projected an innovative root zone cooling system characterized by two coaxial pipes with hydraulic countercurrent flows. This new system was compared with a traditional system with hydraulic flows cocurrent. The plants were equipped with coolers for obtaining flowering in the summer period by a culture of Alstroemeria spp and were measured energy consumption in each root zone cooling system. The tests also focused on a particular change, made during the tests of previous years, which allows the coaxial system in turning his operation from countercurrent flows to cocurrent flows. The results obtained show that the root zone coaxial cooling system allows to obtain, in comparison to the traditional type, a better temperature uniformity of the root zone ground, both when it is used with countercurrent flows both when it is used with cocurrent flow. The system also allows a slight overall reduction in energy consumption.