A field survey on roof ventilation system of single-span plastic greenhouse in cucurbitaceae vegetable cultivation

This research was conducted to obtain the basic information for establishment of standard guidelines in the design and installation of roof ventilation system in single-span plastic greenhouse. To achieve this, the greenhouse structure & characteristics, cultivation status, and ventilation system were investigated for single-span greenhouse with roof ventilation system cultivating the Cucurbitaceae vegetables, watermelon, cucumber, and oriental melon. Most of single-span watermelon greenhouse in Haman and Buyeo area were a hoop-style and the ventilation system in those greenhouses mostly consisted of two different types of 'roof vent (circular or chimney type) + side vent (hole) + fan' and 'roof vent (circular type) + side vent (hole or roll-up type)'. The diameter of circular and chimney-type vent was mostly 60cm and the average number of vents was 10.5 per a bay with vent spacing of average 6.75m. The ratio of roof vent area to floor area and side vent area in the single-span watermelon greenhouse with ventilation fan were 0.46% and 7.6%, respectively. The single-span cucumber greenhouse in Haman and Changnyeong area were a gable roof type, such as even span, half span, three quarter and the 70.6% of total investigated single-span greenhouses was equipped with a roof ventilation fan while 58.8% had a circulation fan inside the greenhouse. The ratios of roof vent area to floor area in the single-span cucumber greenhouse ranged from 0.61 to 0.96% and in the case of the square roof vent, were higher than that of the circular type vent. On average, the roof ventilation fan in single-span cucumber greenhouse was equipped with the power input of 210W and maximum air volume of 85.0 m 3 /min, and the number of fans was 9.75 per a bay. The number of roof vent of single-span oriental melon greenhouse with only roll-up type side vent ranged from 8 to 21 (average 14.8), which was higher than that of other Cucurbitaceae vegetables while the vent number of the greenhouse with a roof ventilation fan was average 7 per a bay.