UK: Helping growers to deal with shorter days after the Summer Solstice

Greenhouse control system experts, Tomtech, are supporting UK commercial growers by equipping them with automatic lighting control systems that can help them prolong growing seasons.

Now passing the 21st June summer solstice, the day with the longest daylight hours, Tomtech highlights that it's the ideal time to plan for the darker days ahead with more intelligent systems that can adapt greenhouse lighting to levels that maintain consistent growth and yields.

"Right now, UK crops are benefiting from the long sunny days of summer, but with the longest day of the year now past, we believe this is the perfect time to start upgrading your greenhouse. Through automatic lighting control systems, growers can ensure their crops receive the ideal amount of supplementary light as daylight hours diminish" says Krzysztof Hernik, Managing Director at Tomtech.

© TomTech

As supplied by Tomtech, their horticultural lighting systems can be in two different programmes to make sure crops always get the right amount of light, only for times when it's needed.

The Extended Day program switches on lights to supplement the natural daylight with the option to set the minimum light intensity required between start and end times. The Retrospective Lighting program offers these features at night, adapting supplementary lighting to the natural light experienced from the previous day.

In addition to lighting systems, Tomtech produces advanced greenhouse control and monitoring systems, including the Tomtech T100, that provides data-driven insights to further fine-tune environmental and climate conditions within structures.

"Complementing our automatic lighting control systems, the T100 can monitor and control the full scope of the greenhouse's environment. As well as adapting supplementary lighting, these control systems can monitor temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, pH, nutrients and more," adds Krzysztof.