PERFORMANCE OF LOW AGRICULTURAL TUNNELS FOR VEGETABLES PRODUCTION

Murad, Ragab I.; Abdel-Wahed, M. H.; Hassan, M. F.; Raslan, M. A.

doi:10.21608/mjae.2018.95809

PERFORMANCE OF LOW AGRICULTURAL TUNNELS FOR VEGETABLES PRODUCTION

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Prof., Agric. Eng. Dept., Fac. of Agric., Alexandria Univ., Matrouh Branch, Egypt.

² Prof., Agric. Eng. Dept., Fac. of Agric., Fayoum Univ., Egypt.

³ Lecturer, Agric. Eng. Dept., Fac. of Agric., Fayoum Univ., Egypt.

⁴ Agricultural engineer in Shoura Chemicals Company, Egypt.

10.21608/mjae.2018.95809

Abstract

Low agricultural tunnels were used for controlling in environmental conditions surrounding plants to provide suitable climate and to maximize the agricultural productivity. In this research, the low agricultural tunnels are proposed for testing the factors, which evaluated the tunnel performance, these factors were: tunnel covers thickness (40, 50 and 65 micron), number of layers tunnel cover (single and double), soil surface cover type (bare soil, black plastic mulched and rice straw), the solar radiation (w/m².day), the ambient air temperature (^oC), inner tunnel temperature (^oC), inner tunnel relative humidity (%) and the soil surface temperature (^oC). The tunnel performance was evaluated in respect of the Cucurbita productivity and the tunnel thermal efficiency. The proposed low tunnel was studied by the thermal behavior inside the tunnel and study of thermal equilibrium under different circumstances. The maximum productivity was investigated with the following conditions: black plastic mulched double layer tunnel cover and 50 micron of cover thickness.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Agricultural Constructions Engineering

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