Greenhouse/Polyhouses - Developing micro-climate for farmers.

Micro-climate existence in Greenhouse/Poly-house.

When i was young, in school i read about Greenhouse "Greenhouse are used to trap the sun-light energy and provide warmth to grow certain specific plants in cold regions" and now when i am working with Yuktix Technologies, things are getting more clear to me. 

Yuktix is providing precision agriculture solutions, intelligent climate control solutions to develop specific micro-climate inside a greenhouse/poly-house. Along with this we are providing real time monitoring for greenhouse and poly-house. Well i will explain further about the solution which we at Yuktix provide, but before that i would like to discuss the benefits of  a greenhouse/poly-house for a farmer or a common man and this is getting my personal attraction. 

So when we say what exactly is greenhouse/poly-house? I would like to first describe both of them and then i will differentiate them. 

Greenhouse : A greenhouse is a building or complex where plants are grown.A greenhouse is a structural building with different types of covering materials, such as a glass or plastic roof and frequently glass or plastic walls; it heats up because incoming visible sunshine is absorbed inside the structure. Air warmed by the heat from warmed interior surfaces is retained in the building by the roof and wall; the air that is warmed near the ground is prevented from rising indefinitely and flowing away. This is not the same mechanism as the "greenhouse effect".

Greenhouse where we are installing our-climate control solution

Poly-house : Poly-house is a greenhouse with plastic based walls. 

Poly-house 

So the basic difference between the both is cost of investment, their sustainability in extreme weather and their effectiveness. Generally developing a poly-house is much more cheap in comparison to developing a glass or hard plastic based poly-house. While the cons of poly-house is that it cannot withstand extreme weather for a longer period of time. But in all poly-houses are very much reliable and people generally prefer to go with poly-house option. 

As per a forum capital investment in developing a poly-house of dimension 1000 sq. meter poly-house @ Rs 450 /sq meter will be 4,50,000 and Indian government at present is providing huge amount of subsidy to those people who want to develop poly-house but that differ from state to state just like Kerla government is providing 75% subsidy for hi-tech agriculture farming in which central government is providing 50 % and rest 25% is provided by state government. For more information on the same, have a look at this link and this discussion on the farmers forum. So now when we talk about hi-tech agriculture and farming, what does it means? Well this much be quite clear to the people around us and we might have even heard about different existing technologies in the market like SMS based irrigation controlled system, miss-call based motor control system etc, etc. Now let me introduce Yuktix in the same field. 

When we talk about hi-tech agriculture farming and considering that we are in India, we have to deal with lot of issues like people don't give a shit about safety features, they don't want real time monitoring and Indian farmers are still very much behind in the using technology for farming. So we at Yuktix are providing precision agriculture solutions  to the farmers using our own developed AWS(Air weather station). We also provide intelligent climate control solutions and real time monitoring systems for polyhouse/greenhouse. As this blog post is specifically on maintaining micro-climate for greenhouse, so emphasis will be more on intelligent solutions for greenhouse/poly-house. 

Intelligent Climate control solutions for Greenhouse/Poly-house-By Yuktix Technologies. 

So when we say intelligent system, we really mean it. It is not timer based(although we also provide timer option in our solutions) solution but is is embedded system running a algorithm in its CPU which adjust the internal environment of the greenhouse/poly-house. Just like it adjust the moisture of the chamber depending upon if it rains or not, or if it is night or day and similarly, it adjust the temperature of the chamber depending on the season and time of the day, so that you need not to worry always about the control of the greenhouse/poly-house internal environment. Along with that , you can always monitor the real time variables of your greenhouse/poly-house either on our web-based application or on our customized Android app/I-phone app or if you don't have a smart-phone, just send a message and you will get real time variables of your greenhouse/poly-house. Along with this you can always adjust the range of the temperature, humidity or lux by simply accessing your account and changing certain parameters. Isn't that sound cool, but its really possible now. With the new emerging technologies like IOT(Internet of Things) and M2M(Machine to Machine) communication and increasing use of GPRS based technologies, it is relativily easy now to monitor and control things from any where in the world.  So below is the list of some of the discrete and effective solutions that come under the category of intelligent climate control solutions for greenhouse/poly-house. 

1. Yuktix Intelligent Data-logger - For real time monitoring and local data-accumulation. 
2. Yuktix Intelligent humidity control system - For controlling and maintaining the humidity of the chamber inside greenhouse/polyhouse.
3. Yuktix Intelligent temperature control system - For controlling and maintaining temperature of chamber inside greenhouse/polyhouse.  
4. Yuktix intelligent lux control system - For controlling and maintaining lux or amount of light coming inside greenhouse/poly-house.

Yuktix Intelligent Data-logger 

Yuktix data-logger can measure different variables via different channels like I2C, UART, Analog , store them locally for future and send them to our cloud where they are again stored and displayed in the respective accounts which a user can easily access via website or via smart-phone application. 

Yuktix DL

Yuktix working DL in someone greenhouse

Android app showing real time data. Same is also available on web-app.

Yuktix Intelligent humidity control system 

Citing a example from one of the greenhouse in Bangalore who are growing chrysanthemum flower, they require to maintain a humidity of 90% in their poly-house chamber which they were earlier doing with the help of manual labour. Everytime after some period someone was require to turn ON and OFF a motor which in turn will control fogger. What we had done is we had replace the dependency of  manual labor to turn ON or OFF motor and operate it with our intelligent humidity control system which take care of everything including power consumption. Along with that if  you want to monitor it on web-app or android app, you can do that also. Below are some of the pics which explain automatic control of the humidity. 

Humidity control process in progress.

Humidity readings

Yuktix Intelligent Temperature control system 

Again citing a example. Rose flower cultivation require maintaining temperature of the chamber. This was again being controlled by Yuktix intelligent temperature control system which turn ON or OFF blowers which in turn will control the temperature of the chamber. Our system also take care of the timings of the day, outside temperature and other factors like power consumption.

Yuktix Intelligent lux control system 

Citing the example of the growth of chrysanthemum  flower, in their later stages when they are about to come up with the flowers and for export market, size of the chrysanthemum flower need to qualify some specific criteria, they need light for limited hours over a day span. So we controlled this requirement of theirs with the help of our very precise lux measurement system and yuktix intelligent lux control system which in turn will control the curtain system and thus amount of light.

chrysanthemum chamber with automatic lux control system

So with the help of all the above stated solutions from Yuktix, a greenhouse/poly-house owner can control the micro-climate required in the greenhouse/poly-house to grow different type of flowers, vegetables, fruits, plants, monitor their chambers internal environment from any where in the world any time and thus in case of emergency can call for manual help in his/her greenhouse/poly-house. I request the readers to please come-up with any type of questions with respect to any above stated technology and we will be happy to resolve your query or problem. 

You can drop mail at shailendra@yuktix.com or can directly call +91-9910908382. Also kindly visit our facebook page for latest updates or subscribe to our blog via email.

Happy Farming.......