Commercial Greenhouse Production
Professional growers understand that every plant thrives under slightly different and unique combinations of temperature, relative humidity or vapor pressure deficit, the CO2 content of the growing environment, light levels, and length of growing days. Our team at Tropos Technologies has approached these climate control issues not from the standpoint of equipment suppliers, but as growers trying to solve a set of problems for which we could not find any available commercial solutions.
The patented Tropos system is very different. We designed it from the start as an integrated solution based on professional process engineering to accomplish the specific goals desired by growers who demand exacting standards of performance in an enclosed growing space. We call our Tropos system process HCHC, which stands for Heating Cooling Humidity and CO2 controls.
Growing in a ‘No Grow’ Zone
Our inaugural greenhouse project in Buffalo, NY, is growing lettuce and hemp using our patented, automated system. The system enables growers to select their own set of desired combinations of temperature, relative humidity (RH), and CO2 levels.
Avoiding the Risks of Mold & Mildew
The challenge to a grower is how to achieve the various sets of required climate conditions effectively, economically, and reliably while always avoiding the dew points that can create mildew, mold, and other crop conditions that can destroy the value of the crop. This is especially critical when the plants are transitioning from daylight conditions when they are transpiring and growing rapidly, to darkened nighttime conditions when temperatures are lowered. When plants sense the arrival of darkness after a daytime of growth, they temporarily increase their rate of transpiration. If the growing space is allowed to cool without simultaneously lowering the RH in the growing space, mold and mildew are likely to occur.
The Tropos Difference
Before Tropos, all “solutions” to the temperature, humidity, and CO2 climate conditions in a growing space have been based on a combination of commercial air conditioning or evaporative systems such as wet walls or misters, dehumidifiers with or without desiccants, and the addition of CO2, if it could be partially contained within the growing space.
The plants in a growing space are closely spaced and all of the transpired water, the main byproduct of their growing process, is trapped in the enclosure and must be managed. The Tropos system, as part of controlling the temperature and humidity, recovers almost all transpired water, treats it with UV and recycles it into the grower’s fertigation system. Because we also capture much of the water from the natural gas combustion that is used to power the Tropos system and to provide CO2, we create a growing system with near zero discharge water and zero make-up water for growing.
The Tropos Guarantee.
Ours is a fully integrated, controllable, conformable, and economical system that is your best option for controlling climate in the grow space. Our engineers guarantee that you will be able to create and maintain the selected levels of temperature, humidity and CO2 within a precise range for each parameter. We also guarantee that you will be able to avoid the dewpoints that can create mildew, mold and other crop problems.
