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Biosystems Engineering (2005) 90 (4), 433441 doi:10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2004.12.002 SEStructures and Environment

Simulation of Greenhouse Management in the Subtropics, Part II: Scenario Study for the Summer Season
Weihong Luo1,2; Cecilia Stanghellini3; Jianfeng Dai1; Xiaohan Wang1; Hendrik Feije de Zwart3; Chongxing Bu2
2 1 College of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, P R China; e-mail: lwh@njau.edu.cn Shanghai Key Laboratory of Protected Horticultural Technology, Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shanghai 201106, P R China 3 Agrotechnology and Food Innovations, Wageningen University and Research Center, P.O. Box17, 6700AA Wageningen, The Netherlands; e-mail of corresponding author: cecilia.stanghellini@wur.nl

(Received 11 February 2004; accepted in revised form 6 December 2004; published online 4 February 2005)

Adaptation of a greenhouse climate management strategy to local climate conditions is important for the improvement of resource use efciency of greenhouse crop production. In this paper the optimal greenhouse climate management under hot, humid, subtropical summer conditions was investigated through simulation analysis based on the Greenhouse Process (KASPRO) model, previously validated under this particular conditions. The study was limited to affordable means of greenhouse design, crop and climate management such as ventilation capacity, canopy size and whitewashing, in a greenhouse without injection of carbon dioxide. Obviously, the increase of greenhouse ventilation capacity leads to an increase of carbon dioxide concentration in the greenhouse air, canopy transpiration, and thus evaporative cooling of the greenhouse air and crop canopy, and in turn to an increase of crop biomass production. The results show, however, that there is a rather sharp ceiling beyond which there is little gain in increasing ventilation capacity. For a cucumber crop under the summer conditions typical of Shanghai, the ventilation capacity of the greenhouse should be about 40 volume changes per hour. The balance of assimilation, respiration and evaporative cooling ensure that crop biomass production is maximal at a canopy leaf area index of 4.
r 2004 Silsoe Research Institute. All rights reserved Published by Elsevier Ltd

1. Introduction Glasshouses originated in the temperate zones of the Northern hemisphere, mainly for growing subtropical plants, such as citrus and grapes, through relatively cold winters. With the advent of oil, and thus easy and cheap heating, glasshouse production has grown into a wellestablished industry in regions such as north and central west Europe. With the increasing availability and reduction in cost of plastic lms, an enormous expansion of protected cultivations has taken place during the last 40 years in subtropical regions. Millions of hectares of unheated plastic structures can now be found mainly in the Mediterranean region, Japan and China (Anonymous, 2001). Most are one-crop tunnels, that are taken out as soon as climate conditions allow for unprotected growth. However, the need for increasing productivity is causing the quality (and the worth) of the structures to
1537-5110/$30.00

grow so much that the nancial investment must be retrieved through multi-year use, with the challenge of also growing protected crops during the summer, when solar radiation heats the crop inside the structure, and the cover prevents adequate exchange with the colder outside atmosphere. Getting rid of the heat load is the major concern for greenhouse climate management in such conditions. This can be realised by: (1) reducing the income of radiation; (2) removing the extra heat through air exchange; and (3) increasing the fraction of energy partitioned into latent heat. Shade screens and whitewash are the major existing measures used to reduce the income of solar radiation; greenhouse ventilation is an effective way to remove the extra heat through air exchange between inside and outside, when outside air temperature is lower; and evaporative cooling is the common technique to reduce sensible heat load by increasing the latent heat fraction
433 r 2004 Silsoe Research Institute. All rights reserved Published by Elsevier Ltd

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Notation A0 Anet C Cf Fvent Fwin g Gl Gw h H I l n Pg window surface area, m2 canopy net assimilation rate, kg m2 s1 CO2 concentration, kg m3 parameter, discharge of energy caused by friction in the window opening greenhouse air exchange rate, m3 m2 s1 the number of windows per greenhouse oor area, m2 gravitational acceleration, m s2 window function describes the wind driving ventilation at lee side windows window function describes the wind driving ventilation at windward side windows opening height of window, m mean height of greenhouse, m daily mean photosynthetically active radiation, W m2 length of the window, m greenhouse ventilation capacity, volume air changes per hour, h1 leaf gross photosynthesis rate, mg[CO2] m2 s1 Q Rm Rm25 T U WT DT b e fwind ftemp y Subscripts
in max min out sky

daily mean global radiation, W m2 respiration rate, g[CH2O] g1[DM] h1 respiration rate at 25 1C temperature, 1C and K wind speed outside the greenhouse, m s1 total biomass of plant, g[DM] temperature difference between inside and outside air, K thermal expansion coefcient of air, K1 leaf initial light use efciency, mg[CO2] J1 contribution of wind speed to greenhouse air exchange, m3 window1 s1 contribution of temperature difference to greenhouse air exchange, m3 window1 s1 window opening angle, degree inside greenhouse maximum minimum outside greenhouse sky outside greenhouse

of dissipated energy. Crop transpiration is a passive form of evaporative cooling, whereas active means are sprinkling, misting, and water pad plus forced ventilation. Existing experience in this respect originates mainly from the Mediterranean basin, where climate characteristics are sunny, dry and windy. In order to explore means of relieving greenhouse heat load in hot summers, many studies on shading, natural ventilation and evaporative cooling have been reported. Most of the existing reports focus on explaining how shading, ventilation and evaporative cooling affects greenhouse microclimate (Fernandez & Bailey, 1992; Baille et al., 1994; Boulard & Draoui, 1995; Boulard et al., 1996, 1997, 1999; Hayashi et al., 1998; Bailey, 2000b, 2000c), mainly for the Mediterranean regions, whereas research on greenhouse cooling in areas with hot and humid summers is limited. Studies have demonstrated that shading (Bailey, 2000a; Baille et al., 2001; Castilla, 2001) and evaporative cooling (Giacomelli et al., 1985; Al-Massoum et al., 1998; Arbel et al., 1999; Kittas et al., 2001; Montero, 2001) are effective means for relieving greenhouse heat load, under dry and sunny summer climate conditions in the Mediterranean area. In subtropical areas where the summer is hot, cloudy and humid (Table 1), active evaporative cooling may not work as effectively as it

does in the Mediterranean area. Willits (2000) studied the effectiveness of different cooling means in a greenhouse with tomato crops, under summer climate conditions in the Eastern United States, where the summer is hot and humid. The results show that shading (with a shade screen) decreases greenhouse air temperature very little, and that the most effective means for reducing greenhouse air temperature were increasing canopy density, ventilation rate, and active evaporative cooling. Active evaporative cooling which needs a large wet bulb depression to be effective, however, is more expensive due to the requirement of high-quality water (for sprinkling and misting) and electricity (for forced ventilation). As Table 1 makes clear, summer climate in subtropical China is hot and humid, and the solar radiation is a lot lower than that in the Mediterranean region, due to a shorter day length in the summer, and more cloudiness (seasonal rainfall). Permanent greenhouse shading may greatly reduce the crop production wherever solar radiation level is not high. Very few means are available for climate manipulation in most greenhouses in the Shanghai area and many other regions where greenhouse development is presently taking place. In fact, only shading, natural ventilation and passive evaporative cooling are inexpensive ways to

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Table 1 Daily mean climatic values for the months of July and August; VPD, vapour pressure decit Avignon, France 19601990* Latitude, 1N Maximum air temperature+, 1C Minimum air temperature+, 1C Global solar radiation, MJ m2 d1 Mean wind speed, m s1 Relative humidity, % Mean VPD of 09:0018:00 h+, kPa Mean maximum VPD+, kPa Mean minimum VPD+, kPa
* **

Almeria, Spain 19832003* 365 309 208 230 22++ 662

Shanghai, China 19601990* 2002** 313 316 248 150 20++ 810 311 246 150 19*** 127 164 035

46 283 166 225 31++ 625

Mean values of 1 July to 31 August, data are from standard weather stations. Mean values of 15 July to 15 August. *** At height of 6 m outside of greenhouse. + At height of 15 m. ++ At height of 10 m.

cool down the greenhouse. Wang et al. (2001) experimentally investigated cooling measures in a Chinese solar greenhouse. But both Willits (2000) and Wang et al. (2001) did not consider the response of crop production to those cooling measures, hence could not quantitatively optimise the cooling control. Therefore, there is a need to develop a strategy for the optimal management in such conditions, that enables inexpensive greenhouse cooling measures to be assessed, by determining how these affect crop production, under the summer climate conditions typical of subtropical China. In a previous paper (Luo et al., 2005), it was established that the KASPRO (greenhouse process) model can reproduce satisfactorily measured climate and crop transpiration in a greenhouse in the subtropical area. Therefore, scenario studies were carried out to investigate the possible responses of crop biomass production under winter climate conditions. In this work, the results are presented for these scenario studies that were carried out by using the KASPRO model to investigate the possible responses of crop biomass production to greenhouse ventilation capacity, canopy size, and greenhouse shading by whitewash, for the hottest period of the year.

55 m. The heights of gutter and ridge were 4 and 48 m, respectively. There were 14 ridge ventilators on each of the east and west sides of the roof, respectively. Each window area was 1 m (length) by 05 m (width) with a fully open height of 04 m. The ground surface of the greenhouse was covered with plastic lm, with the exception of a 25 m wide, concrete path situated along the north wall. The cucumber (Cucumis Sativus L. cv Printo) crop was planted in trays with perlite substrate. The crop was at the harvesting stage during scenario study period.

2.1. Model description For the detailed description and validation of the Greenhouse Process (KASPRO) model that was used for each scenario, the readers are referred to Part I of this study (Luo et al., 2005). The KASPRO model is constructed from modules describing the physics of mass and energy transport in the greenhouse enclosure, and a large number of modules that simulate the used greenhouse climate controllers. Thus, the model takes full account of mutual dependencies between greenhouse characteristics and climate control. The simulation of the greenhouse physical processes comprises separate computation of convective and radiative heat exchange and also includes latent heat uxes associated with evaporation. The radiative heat exchange processes are computed from the StefanBoltzman equation, taking into account the view factors and the emission and transmission coefcients of the radiating surfaces. The greenhouse air exchange rate Fvent in m3 m2 s1 is driven by both buoyancy forces and wind speed as

2. Materials and methods A Dutch Venlo-type glasshouse on a farm situated at the Shanghai Sunqiao Modern Agriculture Development Area (3131N, 12141E) was used in this study. The greenhouse was composed of 26 spans, each 32 m wide in the eastwest direction, with a northsouth length of

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436 shown in Eqns (1)(5) (De Zwart, 1996): F vent 05F win f2 f2 05 wind temp fwing G l y Gw yA0 U G l y 002291 expy=211 G w y 00012y expy=211 ftemp C f l=3jgbDTj05 h15 (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
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where: Fwin in m2 is the number of windows per greenhouse oor area; fwind in m3 window1 s1 is the contribution of wind speed to greenhouse air exchange; ftemp in m3 window1 s1 is the contribution of temperature difference to greenhouse air exchange; and the factor 05 in Eqn (1) accounts for the fact that approximately only half of the windows face windward; Gl is a function describing the wind driving ventilation at lee side windows; Gw is the similar function for windward side windows; A0 in m2 is the window surface area; U in m s1 is the wind speed outside the greenhouse; y in degree is the window opening angle; Cf ( 06 according to De Jong, 1990) is a parameter describing the discharge of energy caused by friction in the window opening; l in m is the length of the window; g in m s2 is the gravitational acceleration; b in K1 is the thermal expansion coefcient of air; DT in K is the temperature difference between inside and outside air; and h in m is the opening height of the window. The microclimate module of the KASPRO model was validated using experimental data of two summers (from 14 to 19 August 2001, and from 24 June to 12 July 2002) and one winter (27 January to 5 February 2002) from the Venlo-type glasshouse under study (Luo et al., 2005). The crop biomass simulation module in KASPRO is based on the model described by Goudriaan and Van Laar (1994) and the parameters specic for cucumber (maximum rate of photosynthesis rate, respiration rate of whole plant at 25 1C, assimilate requirement for formation of dry matter, the ratio of leaf dry weight to total plant dry weight, the specic leaf area, and the extinction coefcient for PAR) are taken from Luo et al. (2005). The outdoor weather data needed to run the KASPRO model are: air temperature, relative humidity, global radiation, direct radiation, diffuse radiation, wind speed and sky temperature. Since only global radiation data were available, the fraction of diffuse radiation was estimated according to Goudriaan and Van Laar (1994). The fraction of diffuse radiation is dependent on the atmospheric transmittance. During the studied period (15 July to 15 August 2002), the

average daily total global radiation at ground surface in Shanghai was 15 MJ m2 d1 (Table 1) and the daily total global radiation outside the atmosphere is about 395 MJ m2 d1 (on 31 July). The daily average atmospheric transmittance during the studied period was about 038 ( 15/395 MJ m2 d1) and the corresponding fraction of diffuse radiation was estimated to be about 06 (Goudriaan & Van Laar, 1994). Therefore, the global radiation was roughly divided into 40% direct and 60% diffuse during the whole period. The estimation of the sky temperature Tsky is equal to (Tout9), is described in Part I of this study (Luo et al., 2005), based on yearly means of vapour pressure and cloudiness. 2.2. Scenario analysis An outdoor hourly weather data set (15 July to 15 August 2002) was used to run the KASPRO model. Carbon dioxide injection, a feature that greatly determines optimal ventilation rate, is seldom available in low-investment greenhouses, and was therefore not included in this study. To investigate the effects of ventilation capacity, shading by whitewash, and canopy size on crop biomass production, different values of ventilation capacity (between 0 and 130 volume changes per hour), the reduction fraction of greenhouse transmittance caused by whitewash (between 0 and 07)), and the canopy leaf area index (LAI) (between 1 and 10) were used to run the KASPRO model.

3. Results The response of biomass production to the greenhouse ventilation capacity, has a saturating trend, whereas response to shading and leaf area index display a (weak) maximum. Therefore, we decided to select rst the optimal ventilation capacity and then determine the best management of the shading and leaf area index. 3.1. Effects of greenhouse ventilation capacity on crop biomass production In a greenhouse without carbon dioxide injection, the ventilation ow must carry enough carbon dioxide to replace net assimilation Anet in kg m2 s1, if carbon dioxide concentration is not to be the limiting factor. That is Anet F vent C out C in (6) where: Fvent in m3 m2 s1 is the greenhouse air exchange rate; and Cout and Cin in kg m3 are the carbon dioxide

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concentration of outside and inside air, respectively. The maximal carbon assimilation rate depends on temperature, radiation, and leaf area which are considered in the KASPRO model, whereas the greenhouse air exchange rate Fvent increases with the opening surface, with the air temperature difference between inside and outside, and with the wind speed [Eqns (1)(5)]. The greenhouse air exchange rate Fvent is very simply related to the more commonly used greenhouse ventilation capacity n, volume air changes per hour, h1, by accounting for H in m, the mean height of the greenhouse n F vent 3600=H (7)

Canopy biomass production,

0.85
(a)

0.80 kg m-2 0.75 0.70 0.65 0.60 LAI=4 LAI=5 LAI=6

Canopy transpiration, kg m-2

170
(b)

The greenhouse ventilation capacity must be sufcient to warrant enough ventilation ow such as required (in the prevailing conditions) by a fully developed crop (LAIX4). In this simulation, the exchange rate has been varied by varying the number of roof windows. However, since many different designs can achieve the same exchange rate, and the latter is the relevant parameter, further reference is made to mean exchange rate, rather then to a specic design parameter. There are other effects of ventilation rate that may have a (limited) bearing on the net assimilation rate. For instance, since vapour removal is enhanced, the crop transpiration increases with ventilation [Fig. 1(b)], which has a cooling effect on the canopy [Fig. 1(c)]. The combined effect of these factors on biomass produced [Fig. 1(a)] follows the law of diminishing return with a rather sharply dened value beyond which there is little gain in increasing ventilation further, regardless of different canopy size (LAI). Since increasing ventilation capacity has associated costs (the construction must be stronger), it is reasonable to regard this value as optimal. In the conditions of this study, the optimal ventilation capacity is around 40 h1 to warrant enough ventilation ow required (in the prevailing conditions) by a fully developed crop.

160 150 140 130

28.5 28.0 27.5 27.0 26.5 26.0 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 Mean greenhouse air exchange rate, h-1
(c) air temperature in greenhouse air temperature outside canopy temperature

Fig. 1. Simulated canopy biomass production (a) and canopy transpiration (with canopy LAI 4) (b) accumulated, and daily mean greenhouse air and canopy temperature (with canopy LAI 4) (c) between 15 July to 15 August 2002 versus mean greenhouse air exchange rate; LAI, leaf area index

3.2. Effects of canopy size on crop biomass production An increased leaf area increases light interception (and thus photosynthetic capacity), but also results in an increase in respiration. Mutual shading of leaves in the canopy ensures that adding a leaf to a dense canopy adds very little to light interception, whereas respiration increases in proportion to biomass. By displaying the balance of these effects, Fig. 2(a) shows that there is a LAI value where biomass production is maximal. In the present case, canopy biomass production increases fast with LAI, when LAI is below 3, and then slowly approaches a maximum value at LAI of 4. Afterwards, biomass production decreases with the increase of LAI

[Fig. 2(a)]. Figure 2(b) shows that with a LAI around and above 4, the temperature of both the inside air and canopy temperature become lower than outside air temperature. These results indicate that it makes sense to maintain a larger canopy, for evaporative cooling during the hot summer [Fig. 2(c)]. This can be done by leaving an additional side shoot. Therefore, a LAI of 4 would be a good compromise between biomass production and microclimate management. 3.3. Effects of shading by whitewash on crop biomass production Whitewash reduces the energy gain of the greenhouse by increasing roof reectance, thus decreasing

Daily mean temperature, C

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Gross photosynthesis, biomass and dark respiration, kg m-2 1. 2 1. 0 0. 8 0. 6 0. 4 0. 2 0.0
30.0 (b) greenhouse air temperature canopy temperature outside air temperature biomass gross photosynthesis dark respiration (a)
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Canopy gross photosynthesis and biomass production, kg m-2

1.2 1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0 140 130 120 110 100 90 80 70 28.0
(c) (b) gross photosynthesis biomass (a)

Daily mean temperature,C

29.0 28.0 27.0 26.0 25.0 220

(c)

Canopy transpiration, kg m-2

170

Daily mean temperature, C

Canopy transpiration, kg m-2

27.0 26.0
canopy temperature

120

70 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Leaf area index 8 9 10

25.0 24.0 0

air temperature outside air temperature in greenhouse

Fig. 2. Simulated canopy gross photosynthesis, biomass production and respiration accumulated (a), daily mean air and canopy temperature (b), and canopy transpiration accumulated (c) between 15 July and 15 August 2002 versus leaf area index (with the greenhouse air exchange rate of 40 h1)

0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 Reduction fraction of greenhouse transmissivity

transmitted solar radiation, while avoiding that the cover gets very hot. An additional effect is to increase the diffuse fraction of the transmitted radiation, which is more effective for crop canopy photosynthesis (Goudriaan & van Laar, 1994). In this study, however, the total crop biomass production accumulated over the simulated period reaches a maximum when the reduction fraction of the greenhouse transmittance, caused by whitewash, is only 01 [Fig. 3(a)]. Afterwards both the canopy biomass production and transpiration linearly decrease with the reduction of greenhouse transmittance [Fig. 3(b)].

Fig. 3. Simulated canopy gross photosynthesis and biomass production (a), canopy transpiration accumulated (b), and daily mean air and canopy temperature (c) between 15 July to 15 August 2002 versus reduction fraction of greenhouse transmittance (with canopy leaf area index LAI 4)

4. Discussion During hot periods, what matters for a greenhouse crop is whether the ventilation ow is able to carry

enough carbon dioxide to replace net assimilation and to achieve a lower ambient temperature. Since greenhouse air exchange rate, Fvent, increases with the opening surface, with the air temperature difference between inside and outside, and with the wind speed [Eqns (1)(5)], once the potential assimilation rate is given, the optimal greenhouse ventilation capacity depends on the average wind speed of the site and the air temperature difference between inside and outside. In this study, the greenhouse ventilation capacity, in order to warrant carbon dioxide required by a fully developed crop, was determined to be about 40 volumes of air changes per hour [Fig. 1(a)]. The best design to achieve a given ventilation capacity, however, can only be determined

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Table 2 Reduction of leaf photosynthesis rate Pg, respiration rate Rm caused by whitewash application Volos, Greece Latitude, 1N Daily mean global radiation radiation outside, W m2 Daily mean global radiation inside greenhouse Qin, W m2 Daily mean photosynthetically active radiation I, W m2 Daily mean photosynthetically active radiation, W m2 after whitewash application Reduction of daily mean air temperature inside greenhouse, 1C Reduction of Pg Reduction of Rm
*

Shanghai, China 313 310 186 93 47 09 39% 6%

Reference On 16th July according to Baille et al. (2001) and Table 1 Greenhouse transmittance is 06, according to Baille et al. (2001) I 05Qin ; according to Goudriaan and van Laar (1994) Reduction of the greenhouse transmittance is taken as 05 According to Baille et al. (2001) and Fig. 3(c) Pg Pg;max 1 expI=Pg;max ; according Gijzen (1992)* Rm Rm25 W T 2T25=10 according to Gijzen (1992)+

397 536 320 160 80 44 32% 26%

Pg,max( 127 mg[CO2] m2 s1) is the maximum leaf photosynthesis rate and  ( 0012 mg [CO2] J1 absorbed) is the leaf initial light use efciency. + Rm25 is the maintenance respiration rate at 25 1C and WT is the total biomass of plant.

by computational uid dynamics (CFD) studies, not studies such as this. For a smaller canopy (LAIo2), the carbon dioxide assimilation is smaller [Fig. 2(a)], which would reduce the required greenhouse ventilation capacity. However, the greenhouse air temperature would get too high, since the cooling caused by canopy transpiration would be small [Fig. 2(c)]. Figure 2(b) shows that with 40 volumes of air changes per hour, the greenhouse air and canopy are warmer than outside when canopy LAI is below 2. The optimal ventilation capacity in given climate conditions, is the best compromise between the carbon dioxide refreshment rate (that increases with leaf area) and cooling requirement (that decreases with leaf area). With transmittance reduced to the half, the mean value of greenhouse to outside air temperature difference (average 8:0019:00) was 44 1C lower than without application of whitewash at Volos, Greece (3971N) according to Baille et al. (2001). In this study, that value (on 17 July 2002, an average summer day of Shanghai) is only 09 1C lower than without application of whitewash at Shanghai, China [Fig. 3(c)]. Based on the average daily total global radiation and the simulated reduction of both the solar radiation transmitted into the greenhouse and the air temperature inside the greenhouse caused by the application of whitewash, the corresponding reduction of the leaf photosynthesis rate and maintenance respiration rate can be estimated as follows according to Gijzen (1992). During the studied period, the leaf gross photosynthesis rate would be 32 and 39% lower than without application of whitewash at Volos

and Shanghai, respectively (Table 2). With a temperature 44 and 09 1C lower, the crop respiration rate would decrease by 36 and 4%, respectively (Table 2). These results indicate that the reduction of biomass production rate caused by whitewash application at Volos would be lower than that at Shanghai. Baille et al. (2001) observed the evaporation rate of a rose crop in Eastern Greece (with a LAI of 2) to be 18% higher after whitewashing with a reduction fraction of the greenhouse transmittance of 05. During the experimental period of that study, the daily total global radiation and daytime mean vapour pressure decit (VPD) (between 9:00 and 19:00) outside the greenhouse exceeded 25 MJ m2 and 247 kPa, respectively. The incoming solar radiation above the rose canopy and the VPD of the greenhouse air between 12:00 and 18:00 had been, before whitewashing, 168 MJ m2 and more than 5 kPa, respectively, whereas corresponding values thereafter were 819 MJ m2 and less than 4 kPa, respectively. Since potential transpiration must increase with radiation, the lower evaporation rate of the canopy before whitewash was considered to be caused by water stress (stomatal closure) (Baille et al., 2001). This current study does not model the effects of VPD and high temperature on stomatal resistance. Therefore, it possibly underestimates the decrease of air temperature and VPD caused by whitewash application (Fig. 4). To evaluate the effect of whitewash application on greenhouse crop biomass production, the effect of extreme conditions on leaf stomatal resistance has to be known better. In addition, the effect of the frequent rain upon

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40
(a)
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30 20 10 0
5
(b)

tions in view of the prevailing conditions in a given place. In particular, under summer climate conditions, characterised by high temperature and frequent rain, a rapid release of the energy load through ventilation is to be preferred to the application of whitewashing. In addition, in the absence of misting or fogging, evaporative cooling should be ensured by maintaining the crop at the largest size that is compatible with balancing maintenance respiration with assimilation. With respect to the particular case analysed in this study, the following specic conclusions can be extracted. (1) The optimal greenhouse ventilation capacity to warrant enough ventilation ow required by a fully developed crop is about 40 volume of air changes per hour, although th e best design to achieve a given ventilation capacity can only be determined by computational uid dynamics (CFD) studies. (2) In crop management, to maintain both biomass production and the cooling effect of transpiration, a crop canopy should have a leaf area index (LAI) of around 4. (3) Whitewash is very effective to prevent greenhouse crop water stress, thereby improving greenhouse microclimate through increased transpiration cooling. In the present study, we forecast little benet from whitewash in the greenhouse microclimate of subtropical China. However, a word of caution is needed, since the effect of extreme conditions on leaf stomatal resistance is possibly underestimated. In practice, crop yield and product quality rather than biomass are of importance to greenhouse growers. Although there are models of dry matter partitioning in a few crops, our knowledge about environmental effects on product quality is still lacking. This is a limitation of studies such as this one that should be well kept in mind.

VPD, kPa

Air temperature,C

3 2 1 0 0 4 8 12 Time, h 16 20 24

Fig. 4. Simulated diurnal time course of greenhouse air temperature and vapour pressure decit (VPD) before (K) and after whitewash (J), on 17 July 2002 with outside daily total global radiation of 1633 MJ m2 and mean VPD between 9:00 and 18:00 of 123 kPa. Leaf area index is assumed to be 2 and reduction of greenhouse transmittance of 05

any whitewash in subtropical China makes removable shading, such as a shading screen possibly more adopted. A screen inside the greenhouse, however, greatly reduces greenhouse ventilation. Recent developments in Almeria (Lorenzo et al., 2003) focus on the use of movable screens outside the greenhouse. Such screens may also be an alternative for shading under the conditions considered in this study. However, the analysis of economic protability of applying movable screens outside the greenhouse would require more information than just the biomass production considered here.

Acknowledgements 5. Conclusions The main point of this study is that local climate factors must be taken into account for the design of an optimal greenhouse management strategy, so that knowledge about good practice is restricted to each respective region and climate. By analysing the separate effect of a limited number of possible actions, a greenhouse climate simulator has been proved to be a useful tool for selecting the most appropriate manipulaThis research was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (60073028) and the Chinese High-tech Programme 863 (2001AA-247023), and the Graduate School of Production Ecology and Resource Conservation of Wageningen University and Research Center. Many thanks to Ir Jouke Campen and Ir Gert-Jan Swinkels of Agrotechnology and Food Innovations, Wageningen University and Research Center for all their help in running and adapting the model.

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