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Agronomy
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Climate Measurements and Equipment Automations in Agricultural Buildings
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Climate Measurements and Equipment Automations in Agricultural Buildings

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Farming Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2021) | Viewed by 33695

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Nikolaos Katsoulas

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agriculture Crop Production and Rural Environment, School of Agricultural Sciences, University of Thessaly, Fytokou Str., 38446 Volos, Greece
Interests: greenhouse; microclimate; hydroponics; aquaponics; microalgae

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Crop and livestock production under agricultural buildings are among the most intensive agricultural systems. During the recent decade, several technologies and techniques have been developed and used to increase the sustainability and circularity of the above systems and cover the increasing demand for a high quantity of high-quality food, leading to higher intensification and industrialisation of the agricultural sector. Precision agriculture (PA) that aims to optimize and improve agricultural processes requires fast, reliable, and distributed measurements in order to give growers a more detailed overview of the ongoing situation in their farm area and control the automations of the production systems in such a way that optimises the use of inputs. Thus, production practices have been modernised by involving PA technologies, decision support systems (DSS), sensors, automations, and highly promising families of technologies such as the wireless sensor networks (WSN), the Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud computing.

Having collected information from animals and plants using many diverse systems and sensors, DSS and early warning systems based on smart algorithms included in cloud computing can be used to provide better insight into ongoing processes and make predictions about potential dangers that may threaten production. Accordingly, several research institutions in cooperation with the industry are working to deliver equipment and automations to the relevant stakeholders.

The goal of this Special Issue is to provide the members of a multidisciplinary community with a collection of manuscripts that present the latest innovative studies, tools, approaches, and techniques that have been successful in addressing some of the above concerns, such as the use of sensors and measuring and data analysis techniques, energy saving technologies, circularity increase techniques and methods and automations and control systems in agricultural buildings including greenhouses, screenhouses, livestock buildings, and facilities for agricultural products storage and drying.

Dr. Nikolaos Katsoulas
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Internet of Things
  • cloud
  • wireless sensor networks
  • monitoring
  • sensors
  • image analysis
  • remote sensing
  • control systems
  • greenhouses
  • crop storage
  • livestock
  • circularity

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 3842 KiB  
Article
Cost-Effectiveness Evaluation of Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings for the Aging of Red Wine
by María Teresa Gómez-Villarino, María del Mar Barbero-Barrera, Fernando R. Mazarrón and Ignacio Cañas
Agronomy 2021, 11(4), 687; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy11040687 - 04 Apr 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2104
Abstract
Achieving the best energy performance has become an important goal. The European Union has consequently developed legislative measures that introduce the concepts of nearly zero-energy buildings and cost-effectiveness during life-cycle. We use these concepts, looking for the design of energy-efficient wineries, while reducing [...] Read more.
Achieving the best energy performance has become an important goal. The European Union has consequently developed legislative measures that introduce the concepts of nearly zero-energy buildings and cost-effectiveness during life-cycle. We use these concepts, looking for the design of energy-efficient wineries, while reducing wine production costs. The research method is based on the monitoring of temperature and humidity of 12 red wine aging rooms of representative construction designs with almost zero energy consumption that together with the economic data obtained from construction cost update, determine a parameter that has been called “construction effectiveness”. This parameter allows the evaluation of the cost–benefit ratio of each of the analyzed constructions. The results obtained demonstrate that adequate conditions can be achieved for the wine aging with zero-energy buildings, although there are notable differences in cost, damping effectiveness, and resulting hygrothermal environment depending on the type of building. The correlation between performance and construction costs shows large differences in cost per unit of damping achieved: 0.5–2.7 €/m2 for temperature and 0.6–5 €/m2 for relative humidity. With a correct design, the differences between typologies can be reduced or even non-existent. The results obtained can be a valuable tool to promote the design of zero-energy warehouses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Measurements and Equipment Automations in Agricultural Buildings)
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15 pages, 1316 KiB  
Article
Estimation of Aerodynamic and Canopy Resistances in a Mediterranean Greenhouse Based on Instantaneous Leaf Temperature Measurements
by Georgios Nikolaou, Damianos Neocleous, Evangelini Kitta and Nikolaos Katsoulas
Agronomy 2020, 10(12), 1985; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy10121985 - 17 Dec 2020
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2544
Abstract
Aerodynamic and canopy resistances have long been considered to be of key interest in model equation parameterization, particularly for the accurate estimation of crop evapotranspiration. However, model parameters applied in greenhouses showed variation affected by the micrometeorological environment. Three experiments were carried out [...] Read more.
Aerodynamic and canopy resistances have long been considered to be of key interest in model equation parameterization, particularly for the accurate estimation of crop evapotranspiration. However, model parameters applied in greenhouses showed variation affected by the micrometeorological environment. Three experiments were carried out in a plastic greenhouse to evaluate microclimate effects on resistances of a soilless cucumber crop. The regression analysis of canopy-to-air temperature (Tc − Ta) difference on air vapor pressure deficit (VPD) was substituted into the energy balance equation for the estimation of aerodynamic and canopy resistance values. As expected, a fan and pad evaporative cooling system proved to be the more efficient method of decreasing crop temperature (Tc) compared to the forced air ventilation system. The estimated transpiration by the Penman–Monteith model based on calculated aerodynamic and canopy resistance values successfully validated values measured with lysimeters in different growing periods. In this article, we report for the first time the calculation of aerodynamic and canopy resistance values inside a greenhouse based on equations for an open field that were found in the literature. Results may be helpful in Mediterranean greenhouses for direct determinations of plant water evaporative demand and smart climate control systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Measurements and Equipment Automations in Agricultural Buildings)
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39 pages, 25228 KiB  
Article
A Cost-Effective Embedded Platform for Greenhouse Environment Control and Remote Monitoring
by Radu L. Sumalan, Nicoleta Stroia, Daniel Moga, Vlad Muresan, Alexandru Lodin, Teodor Vintila and Cosmin A. Popescu
Agronomy 2020, 10(7), 936; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy10070936 - 29 Jun 2020
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 5707
Abstract
This paper presents the development of a cost-effective automatic system for greenhouse environment control. The architectural and functional features were analyzed in the context of the realization of a controlled-environment agricultural system through all its stages: installation, deployment of the software, integration, maintenance, [...] Read more.
This paper presents the development of a cost-effective automatic system for greenhouse environment control. The architectural and functional features were analyzed in the context of the realization of a controlled-environment agricultural system through all its stages: installation, deployment of the software, integration, maintenance, crop control strategy setup and daily operation of the grower. The proposed embedded platform provides remote monitoring and control of the greenhouse environment and is implemented as a distributed sensing and control network integrating wired and wireless nodes. All nodes were built with low-cost, low-power microcontrollers. The key issues that were addressed include the energy-efficient control, the robustness of the distributed control network to faults and a low-cost hardware implementation. The translation of the supervisory growth-planning information to the operational (control network) level is achieved through a specific architecture residing on a crop planning module (CPM) and an interfacing block (IB). A suite of software applications with flows and interfaces developed from a grower-centric perspective was designed and implemented on a multi-tier architecture. The operation of the platform was validated through implementation of sensing and control nodes, application of software for configuration and visualization, and deployment in typical greenhouses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Measurements and Equipment Automations in Agricultural Buildings)
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20 pages, 8404 KiB  
Article
Design of a Real-Time Gas-Exchange Measurement System for Crop Stands in Environmental Scenarios
by Hans-Peter Kläring and Oliver Körner
Agronomy 2020, 10(5), 737; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy10050737 - 20 May 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3176
Abstract
In contrast to conducting measurements on single plants, canopy gas exchange monitored continuously and for large batches of plants can give high-value data for crop physiological models. To this end, a system including eight airtight greenhouse cabins with a ground area of 28.8 [...] Read more.
In contrast to conducting measurements on single plants, canopy gas exchange monitored continuously and for large batches of plants can give high-value data for crop physiological models. To this end, a system including eight airtight greenhouse cabins with a ground area of 28.8 m2 and a volume of 107.8 m3 each was designed for measuring the CO2 and H2O gas exchange of crop stands following the general principle of semi-open chambers. The measuring facility consists of a set of mass flow meters allowing air exchange rates between 0.5 h−1 and 19 h−1 (i.e., m3 gas per m3 greenhouse air per hour) and CO2 supply rates up to 4 L min−1 (i.e., ca. 14.9 g m−2 greenhouse h−1) and sensors for measuring the concentrations of CO2 and H2O. There are four separated belowground troughs per cabin for the root environment that can be operated as individual gas exchange chambers measuring the belowground gas exchange for example root zone respiration. This paper outlines a demonstration of the possibilities and constraints for measuring crop gas exchange in combination with crop model validation for larger crop stands under various conditions and discusses them along with examples. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Measurements and Equipment Automations in Agricultural Buildings)
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15 pages, 1592 KiB  
Article
Effects of Cooling Systems on Greenhouse Microclimate and Cucumber Growth under Mediterranean Climatic Conditions
by Georgios Nikolaou, Damianos Neocleous, Nikolaos Katsoulas and Constantinos Kittas
Agronomy 2019, 9(6), 300; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy9060300 - 11 Jun 2019
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 5144
Abstract
Two experiments were conducted in different cropping seasons under Mediterranean climatic conditions to investigate the impact of two cooling systems (fan-pad evaporative as opposed to fan ventilation) on greenhouse microclimate and soilless cucumber growth. The second objective of the experiment was to determine [...] Read more.
Two experiments were conducted in different cropping seasons under Mediterranean climatic conditions to investigate the impact of two cooling systems (fan-pad evaporative as opposed to fan ventilation) on greenhouse microclimate and soilless cucumber growth. The second objective of the experiment was to determine the most appropriate irrigation regime (between 0.24 and 0.32 L m−2) in relation to crop water uptake and greenhouse fertigation effluents. The use of a fan ventilation system enhanced the vapor pressure deficit; thus, the crop transpiration improved by 60% in relation to the transpiration rates of plants grown under the fan-pad system. Higher transpiration rates alleviated the heat load as the external–inside greenhouse air differences declined from 6.2 °C to 3 °C. The leaf–air temperature differential indicated that plants were not facing any water stress conditions for both cooling systems tested; however, fan ventilation reduced drainage emissions outflows (95% decrease) compared with evaporative cooling. Results also demonstrated that an irrigation regime of 0.24 L m−2 can be applied successfully in soilless cucumber crops, keeping the drainage to a minimum (20% of the nutrient solution supply). These results suggest that fan ventilation cooling system in conjugation with an appropriate irrigation regime prevents overheating and minimizes the nutrient and water losses in spring-grown soilless cucumber crops in Mediterranean greenhouses without compromising yield. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Measurements and Equipment Automations in Agricultural Buildings)
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Review

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22 pages, 3757 KiB  
Review
Design, Control, and Performance Aspects of Semi-Closed Greenhouses
by Athanasios Sapounas, Nikolaos Katsoulas, Bart Slager, Robert Bezemer and Charlotte Lelieveld
Agronomy 2020, 10(11), 1739; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy10111739 - 08 Nov 2020
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 5632
Abstract
Several greenhouse energy saving technologies and management strategies have been developed in order to meet the needs for implementation of production systems with low and efficient energy use and low CO2 emissions. Towards this aim, a number of greenhouse concepts that make [...] Read more.
Several greenhouse energy saving technologies and management strategies have been developed in order to meet the needs for implementation of production systems with low and efficient energy use and low CO2 emissions. Towards this aim, a number of greenhouse concepts that make use of these technologies have been developed and tested, such as the closed greenhouse, the solar greenhouse, the energy-producing greenhouse, and others. The closed or semi-closed greenhouse concept is widely accepted as a concept to achieve the targets for energy saving and low CO2 emissions. A major difference of this concept to a conventional greenhouse is that climate control by window ventilation is partially or completely replaced by systems that treat the air, regulate the air exchange between inside and outside, and in few cases collect and store the excess heat load in order to be reused at a later time. A semi-closed greenhouse allows temperature, humidity, and CO2 concentration to be controlled independently, during heating as well as cooling mode function. Among others, semi-closed greenhouses offer possibilities for better control of greenhouse environment, for increasing water use efficiency by decreasing the evaporation losses via ventilation and for reducing the pesticide use by decreasing the entry of insects and fungal spores in the greenhouse through the ventilation openings. The aim of this review is to focus on the design, control, and performance aspects of semi-closed greenhouse systems which use either (a) an air treatment corridor with evaporative cooling pad connected with an air distribution system with perforated polyethylene tubes or (b) decentralized air treatment units distributed inside the greenhouse. It gives on overview of the principles of the semi-closed greenhouse, the potential energy consumption and the expected savings. Additionally, it gives insight into the climate conditions in relation to the conventional greenhouse, crop growth, water consumption, and pest control. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Measurements and Equipment Automations in Agricultural Buildings)
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17 pages, 360 KiB  
Review
Plant Responses to UV Blocking Greenhouse Covering Materials: A Review
by Nikolaos Katsoulas, Anastasia Bari and Chryssoula Papaioannou
Agronomy 2020, 10(7), 1021; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy10071021 - 15 Jul 2020
Cited by 26 | Viewed by 8651
Abstract
Pure polyethylene (PE) is enriched with several additives to make it a smart application material in protected cultivation, as a cover material for either greenhouses or screenhouses. When this material completely or partially absorbs ultraviolet (UV) solar radiation, then it is called UV [...] Read more.
Pure polyethylene (PE) is enriched with several additives to make it a smart application material in protected cultivation, as a cover material for either greenhouses or screenhouses. When this material completely or partially absorbs ultraviolet (UV) solar radiation, then it is called UV blocking material. The current work presents a review on the effects of the UV blocking covering materials on crop growth and development. Despite the passage of several years and the evolution of the design technology of plastic greenhouse covers, UV blocking materials have not ceased to be a rather interesting technique for the protection of several vegetable and ornamental species. Much of the research on UV blocking materials focuses on their indisputable effect on reducing the activity of pests and viral-related diseases, rather than on the effects on the crop physiology itself. In the present paper, representative studies dealing with the effect of the UV blocking materials on the agronomic factors of different crops are presented and discussed. The results reveal that UV blocking materials have mainly positive effects on the different plant physiological functions, such as photosynthesis and transpiration rate, and on growth characteristics, while they might have a negative effect on the production and content of secondary compounds, as anthocyanins and total phenolics. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Measurements and Equipment Automations in Agricultural Buildings)
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