"HVAC's goal should be integrated control"

Desert Aire, a Milwaukee-based manufacturer of commercial and industrial humidity and climate control systems, has published a new technical resource that details the environmental control needs of grow rooms and indoor farms, and the reasons for the success of Desert Aire’s purpose-built, dehumidification-based GrowAire systems.

“Application Note 26 – Grow Room Environmental Control” is a 4-page, 4-color publication that supports professionals with HVAC system design interests in the cannabis and indoor farming industries. The Application Note discusses plant requirements relating to photosynthesis and transpiration, the intertwined processes plants use to feed themselves and to carry nutrients throughout their tissues. The Application Note also outlines the vital role played by vapor pressure differentials, also known as vapor pressure deficits, in driving transpiration and providing the forces for nutrients to be brought from roots to the upper areas of plants.

Growers that use air conditioners and small portable dehumidifiers for HVAC systems are more likely to create problems for themselves as this approach typically leads to constantly fluctuating temperatures and relative humidities – a result of the air conditioners and dehumidifiers not being controlled together.

The Application Note identifies constant dewpoint temperatures as the key metric in creating vapor pressure deficits for healthy plant growth. Desert Aire’s GrowAire systems convert setpoint and sensor values internally to dewpoints. Since dewpoints are direct measurements of the total moisture contents in air, dewpoints provide more stable values and are more representative of the required changes in operating modes or stages of GrowAire systems. Because GrowAire controllers are looking at both temperatures and absolute humidity values, they can eliminate the wild swings of conventional systems.

The publication Application Note 26 – Grow Room Environmental Control is available for download as a PDF document at desert-aire.com. To receive a printed copy of the publication, email sales@desert-aire.com.