Feeling the Cold? Or Hot and Bothered?
Keeping the Best Temperature for Your Growroom
It often seems like common sense to keep your growroom at the ideal temperature for your crop but the importance this can easily be forgotten. In the recent summer we had the biggest heatwave for decades and now in December the cold climates are beginning to kick in.
Air temperature has a massive impact and below are some of the consequences of getting this wrong.
Reduced Plant Size
Plants in the outdoor world are naturally adapted to altering temperatures from daytime to night time and is is believed that this actually helps their growth. To simulate this it is worth reducing the temperature by about 10 degrees when the lights are resting.
Pests
A warm plant environment definitely helps pests to flourish. Indeed, this may well have been a problem in the summer when plenty of cooling and ventilation is required. Do remember that when the cold weather kicks in it can be easy to over-compensate and once again encourage an infestation.
Productivity
Cold weather will slow the plants' growth. Excessively warm temperatures can prevent fruits from setting.
Finding the Ideal Temperature for Your Plants
This depends to a massive extent upon what plants they are! Generally there are two categories, hot weather or cool weather. Consider the native origin of the plant, what its typical environment is and in what season it will grow.
There are of course too many plants for us to give a specific temperature for each but cool weather plants do well at around 60 degrees and warm weather at about 80 degrees.
Heating
The heaters that we recommend are these warm beauties...
LightHouse ECOHEAT 45w Greenhouse Heater
LightHouse ECOHEAT 80w Greenhouse Heater
LightHouse ECOHEAT 135w Greenhouse Heater
2kW Greenhouse Heater
Cooling
We have plenty of cooling fans and systems and whatever the temperature a steady flow of air is always important.
Some of our best fans are here
Maintenance
This is the essential part! Once you have the heating/cooling systems in place and know your plants' ideal temperature get a good device to keep a steady eye on it with.
An everyday Digital Series
thermometer provides reliable readings so that you can make the necessary adjustments to the climate.
For the connoisseur, the RAM Air-Pro II can automatically control two inline/exhaust fans with a thermostat. Take a look at the RAM Air-Pro II
as we reckon this subject is well worthy of another blog article!