How dehumidifiers improve greenhouse flower growing

Growing flowers isn’t an easy task, even in a controlled environment like a greenhouse. High-quality potted or cut flowers can be worth a lot. But to get the top value, they need to be perfect, in the right size and shape, with vivid colors, and without blemishes or deformities.

That means climate fluctuations, diseases, and pest outbreaks all drastically reduce profitability for flower growers. Flowers are delicate and are highly impacted by climate conditions. So the only way to consistently grow the best flowers is to create and maintain ideal greenhouse conditions. That means temperature, lighting, and humidity should all be under complete control.

Humidity has a major impact on flower development
Humidity is often overlooked when it comes to greenhouse cultivation. It simply isn’t felt in the same way as lighting or temperature, leading some growers to underestimate its impact on their crops.

But when it comes to flowers, which must look flawless, humidity is a crucial factor. Humidity regulates the way flowers transport nutrients and metabolize, which ultimately determines how well they develop. That’s because they collect nutrients from the water they take in through their roots. But to be able to take in this water, they need to be able to transpire.

Like most plants, flowers transpire water vapor through the stomata on their leaves. This creates a pulling force, known as the xylem pull, which causes water to travel up from the soil, through the roots, and throughout the plant, distributing nutrients where necessary.

When relative humidity is high, meaning the air is saturated with water vapor or close to saturation, flowers won’t be able to transpire. When transpiration stops, nutrients stop flowing, and the flowers’ development slows down or even stops altogether. Needless to say, this results in smaller, less healthy, and less beautiful flowers.

Greenhouse humidity leads to flower diseases
Humidity’s impact on flowers isn’t limited to their metabolism, though. It also causes a problem flower growers know all too well – mildews and diseases. Some of the most common and destructive flower diseases, such as powdery mildew and botrytis, require high humidity to break out.

Diseases and molds can cause flowers to grow smaller, develop blemishes, produce less saturated colors, or even shrivel, rot, and die.

Most humidity-related diseases develop in the presence of water. But once they take hold, they may continue to develop and spread spores even after the water is removed. So, making sure relative humidity is kept low and never reaches 100% is critical for disease prevention.

Why traditional heating and ventilation isn’t enough
Humidity is an inevitable problem in flower greenhouses. Flowers constantly evaporate water as part of their activity. So, humidity is always on the rise.

Traditionally, flower growers attempt to control humidity by releasing humid air through windows and vents. While this can be very effective, it’s also entirely dependent on the conditions outside. When it’s humid or raining outside, ventilation won’t be able to reduce humidity, leaving growers with no option.

More importantly, ventilation can be very inefficient. Growers invest a lot of energy in heating in order to maintain the best temperature for their flowers. But by releasing humid air, they also lose heat, requiring constant reheating. This is a very costly side-effect of traditional humidity control, which growers can altogether avoid.

The only way to thoroughly and efficiently maintain ideal humidity levels is with dehumidifiers designed for flower cultivation.

Using DryGair to optimize greenhouse flower growing
Greenhouse dehumidifiers, such as DryGair, use refrigeration to create controlled condensation inside the unit. They efficiently remove water vapor from the air without creating an exchange of air with the outdoors.

So, by using dehumidifiers, flower growers can reduce and control their greenhouse humidity levels from the inside without losing any heat from ventilation.

Insulating the greenhouse and using DryGair provides growers with complete control over their environment at all times. This leads to further benefits, including energy savings, reusable water from the dehumidifier, and of course – growing large yields of consistent, beautiful, healthy, and vibrant flowers.