—Lancaster Farming. Saturday- September 9, 1972
6
Researcher Explains Need
For Greenhouse Engineering
Interest in imporved
mechanization for greenhouses
and plant nurseries is increasing
steadily, due largely to increased
costs for labor and production,
says Dr. Sverker P E. Persson,
associate professor of
agricultural engineering at The
Pennsylvania State University.
Dr Persson discussed
engineering opportunities during
the annual meeting of the North
Atlantic Region, American
Society of Agricultural
Engineers, held recently at
College Park, Md.
Achievements may come from
several kinds of engineering, he
suggested. Implement and
equipment designers are needed
for many areas of green
house and plant nursery
mechanization. Development of
instrumentation for en
vironmental control is a wide
open field
Systems engineers and in
dustrial engineers can point out
the best combinations of facilities
and resources, including the most
efficient locations for different
stages of the process and the
equipment. Such developments
make the manual work easier.
Dr Persson indicated such
engineering is of special interest
in the Northeast where closeness
to large centers of population
offers advantages to greenhouse
operators and plant nurserymen.
The advantages include low costs
for transportation and minimum
time to ship perishable items—
both vital factors, he affirmed.
Stressing the size of
greenhouse operations m the
east, he said Pennsylvania, New
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York, and Ohio are second, third,
and fourth, respectively, among
the states in floor space in
greenhouses. The greenhouse
and plant nursery industries
include production of bedding
plants, potted plants, cut flowers,
and nursery stock.
He indicated considerable
engineering and technology have
already been applied to con
trolling plant environments in
greenhouses. Sophisticated
control systems predict the
requirements of a particular
plant, establish the naturally
available amounts of the en
vironmental factors, and com
pensate for the difference. This
means providing correct tem
perature, humidity, air velocity,
radiation, and chemical content
of the atmosphere.
Improved soil preparation
could use better equipment for
getting the soil mixed with the
proper ingredients, he observed.
Designing suitable plant con
tainers and filling them with soil
is another area for
mechanization. Soil handling
systems are needed rather than
individual soil handling
machines.
In some cases, containers can
be eliminated. Machines are
available which make soil cubes
needing no containers. Dr.
Persson said an intensive search
is underway to find and develop
biodegradable containers for
potted plants.
Growing plants without soil is
attracting increased interest. A
growing medium for geraniums
is made of specially treated
paper pulp. Cucumbers are
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Keep alert, during the fall
harvest and planting season, for
slow moving vehicles on the high
ways. And be sure your farm
machinery is equipped with an
SMV emblem before it’s moved
onto any highway.
grown on bats of rockwool in
stead of soil.
From the engineering stand
point, such new growing
mediums require systematic
Time to Prevent
Form Equipment
Highway Accidents
By Jay W. Irwin
Associate County Agent
As daylight hours grow shorter,
farmers will be moving more
farm machinery on highways
during semi-dark or dark hours.
Slow moving farm vehicles
traveling on highways present a
real traffic hazard. The motorist
must recognize that a tractor
traveling 5 to 10 miles per hour is
practically standing still com
pared to a 50-m.p.h. automobile.
Most highway drivers have never
driven a farm machine on the
highway and simply do not
comprehend how slowly they do
travel.
Proper identification and
warning is of utmost importance.
The triangular Slow Moving
Vehicle emblem must be used
with all farm equipment operated
on highways.
Lancaster, Penna
studies of moisture holding
capacity, moisture transfer, heat
transfer, aeration, diffusion
properties, resistance to
growing, and the strength of the
medium.
As for planting the seeds, a
pneumatic seeder has been built
that can handle 96 individual
flower seeds at a time. When the
seeds are too small or too
irregular for precision planting,
pelleting of seeds has been tried
and is used to some extent,
especially in Europe.
Mechanization of the tran
splanting operation is under
study at Penn State and
elsewhere, he pointed out.
Results indicate that about half
the normal transplanting time is
used to separate seedlings from
each other. The other half is
spent in putting seedlings into
new containers.
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Penn State scientists are ex
perimenting with seedling plants
grown individually in small soil
cubes. The cubes are
mechanically transplanted into
larger containers at the proper
stage of development.
A wide variety of mechanical
systems are already in use for
watering plants. One type
spreads a mist of water over the
plants. There is also a system
wherein each individual plant has
a small plastic hose supplying
water as needed.
Watering is sometimes
automatically controlled, for
example, by the weight of the pot
and plant, or by the effect of
incoming radiation.
Mechanization is also helping
with the task of pulling shade
cloth over plants to increase the
length of the dark period, thereby
promoting flowering.
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