Improvement of greenhouse climate control in Mediterranean conditions : A case study from Turkey

In Turkey, protected cultivation includes the production in greenhouses and under low plastic tunnels. The total area reached 64 912 ha in 2014, of which 76% is greenhouses. As in the other Mediterranean countries, protected cultivation is mainly located where the climatic conditions are favourable for production without any additional heating. However, in the last decade high tech greenhouses have been introduced particularly in order to use renewable alternative energy for greenhouse heating. In this research a greenhouse climate and crop yield model was used in order to evaluate possible improvements under simple structures and high tech greenhouses, applying different climate control strategies in different locations of Turkey. The results showed that significant yield increase could be provided by increasing the heating set-point to 13°C in unheated low tech greenhouses. Also evaporative cooling systems could be used for early planting dates for high tech greenhouses. It was concluded that greenhouse climate and crop yield model could be used as a tool to estimate the improvements of climate control strategies on yield.