In April 2013 the German herb grower Hermann Brelage installed a DryGair unit in it's basil greenhouse. One year later the grower claims to have reduced the energy consumption in the greenhouse by 20-30% as well as having reduced the disease pressure. Hermann Brelage and his wife Hedwig are the proud owners of the 1.8 hectare herb nursery Brelage Biolandhof in Papenburg, Emsland, Germany. They produce all kinds of herbs in their advanced high tech Venlo greenhouses, like Basil, Parsley, Coriander, Mint, Oregano and Chives. As they are a certified organic grower, they need to find alternatives to protect their crops from pests and diseases, hence they started a trial with a DryGair unit in their 2,000 square meter Basil production.
"Botrytus can become a large problem in our crops, and we also have a lot of Powdery Mildew pressure", said Hermann Brelage. "The DryGair units is able to control the internal climate conditions of the greenhouse and maintain relatively stable temperature and humidity level. The machine takes a lot of moisture out of the air and removes also the spores of the fungus."
The DryGair system works by taking the increased humidity generated by the plants in a closed greenhouse, condensing the humidity into water and removing it; the energy gained by this process is then used to reheat the air, which is returned warmer and drier back into the greenhouse above the crops. In this order the grower does not only reduces the disease pressure but he also decreases the energy input. "In the first year we noticed that we used 20-30 % less energy, which is very positive", Brelage said. "We are now evaluating further results to see what we can do with additional DryGair units for our other crops in other sections of our greenhouses."
The DryGair unit at Brelage is connected to the Priva climate computer. This enables the grower to control the DryGair and analyse the results in his total cultivation data output.
For more information: DryGair
Hadar Fuchs
hadar@Drygair.com
+972-9-7730989
www.drygair.com