THE USE OF SCREENS IN GREENHOUSE HEMP CULTIVATION

Commercial hemp production generally occurs indoors and requires environmental control of humidity and lighting fot both vegetative growth and flowering stages of development. One of the most relevant variables for a good hemp production is the photoperiod, depending on the exposure of the plant to light, the yield of the crop will increase or decrease. In the vegetative phase, the plant must receive more hours of light, while in the flowering phase, it requires shorter periods, starting to flower when the daily light exposure starts to decrease.

Although there is no established protocol for the use of greenhouse screens for hemp cultivation (depending on latitude, type of greenhouse, installation of auxiliary lights, climatic variables…), it has been demonstrated that screens can offer an easy and above all economical solution when growing hemp in greenhouses, as they can influence the most important parameters for plant growth: light, temperature, CO2 and humidity.

One of the most commonly used ways in greenhouse hemp production is to install more than one screen to achieve different objectives, for example, to increase shading levels over the greenhouse and to allow a total blackout to improve climatic conditions.

It is advisable to make use of technology to be able to play with the functions performed by each of the screens independently. For example, the OPTIMUM system, which allows each screen to be assigned a different operating mode: screen with termal function, shading, darkening… In this way, base don established parameters, the natural light radiation and photoperiod can be regulated.