Quantifying the Effects of Hanging Baskets on the Greenhouse Light Environment

摘要

During the production of ornamentals in commercial greenhouses, hanging baskets are often grown above the bench or floor space to maximize production. These hanging baskets impact the light environment delivered to the crop underneath. An experiment was conducted to quantify the effect of hanging basket density (determined by number of lines of containers per greenhouse bay and container spacing per line), container content (with plants vs. no plants), and container color (white vs. green) on photosynthetic photon flux (PPF) transmission and red (R) and far-red (FR) light measurements at the greenhouse floor under the hanging basket treatments. Interception of PPF was calculated as a proportion of the treatment with no hanging baskets. Interception of PPF increased as hanging basket density increased, from 5.3% interception at 0.21 containers/yard(2) to 25.5% interception at 2.57 containers/yard(2). Green containers intercepted 36.1% more radiation than the white containers. Presence of plants in the containers resulted in 62.3% greater PPF interception than containers without plants. R:FR was reduced from 1.15 measured under hanging basket treatments without plants to 1.07 under hanging basket treatments containing plants