The Advantages of Shade Cloth
Gardening is nothing more than mastering the environment around you. That is what each of us is attempting to do in our own gardens. There are some of us that are lucky enough to have our own greenhouses where we are the masters of the environment, or so we think. When we encounter problems in our ideal greenhouse, and we all have, we turn to publications such as this for solutions.To get more news about
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The first and by far, the largest problem we encounter is that of excessive heat. J.B. Jones, writing in the Garden & Greenhouse May issue, in his article that I call, the Care and Feeding of a Greenhouse, stated: It is easy to heat a greenhouse, but difficult to cool one. He also gave an excellent example of how to sterilize one. You simply close down everything and let it bake in the sun for a few days. Talk about excessive heat, 145 degrees plus, and that is just from the power of sunlight entering into the greenhouse, impacting the ground, transforming from radiant energy in to long wave thermal energy. We all know this, we see it everyday and we call it “The Greenhouse Effect.” We are not talking rocket science here; we are talking about ever day life.
A greenhouse is a solar collector, solar collectors can be used to make hot water, and I find that to grow plants in this environment is difficult, but it can be done if you do the following things: spend large amounts of money for electricity to run the cooling fans that draw outside air into the greenhouse thru water cooled pads. This is called evaporative cooling, and it does not work efficiently when the outside humidity is 50% or higher. We pray for cloudy days because we know from experience those cloudy days outside equal cooler days inside.
We have also found out that as the sun heads south on its path, we are thankful for the lower intensities of sunlight and we call this fall, and the plants need it. Since last spring, they have been operating non stop. Light levels increase, heat levels increase, water consumption is increased and when the light and heat levels are at maximum in the summertime, your plants or crops are stressed to the max.
The next step we need to take is the one that comes about when you ask the question of: How much of the incoming sunlight do the plants really need for proper growth? The answer may surprise many of you. Plants can only process 1 ½ to 2 % of the sunlight they receive for photosynthesis.
In any gardening endeavor, while we are attempting to “Master the Environment” we find that in growing tomatoes, we need a temperature of 45 degrees to set blooms, after bloom set, we need a percentage of shade that will protect against high soil temperatures after that. Mulch is excellent for this and is the very first step, or adjustment, for climate modification. The most successful adjustments are ones that maintain high light intensities, but without direct sun.
When used properly shade cloth can help solve the problem by creating a microclimate underneath the shade cloth. All of us have been in Nursery’s where the newly arrived plants are placed underneath the shade cloth covering, and in effect, this is one way to harden them off. I simply take this low cost, low tech procedure a few steps farther by expanding up to 12 feet above the ground, coverings as much space as Mrs. Shade will allow me have. I also take the shade cloth down to the ground, creating a more complete microclimate that does not have any excessive wind. Shade cloth makes an excellent wind screen. Melon growers in Israel and the tomato growers in Spain grow crops with reduced light intensities and lower ground temperatures with this method. By using it they have vastly increased crop yield with a 35% water reduction. At the same time, since they are in screen rooms, their pesticide use has been reduced as well. Take the stress out of the plant by sunlight intensity reduction and you naturally get a stronger plant. Stress a cherry tomato plant and watch the bugs zero in on it.
