Proper ventilation, in a nutshell, equals adequate air changes and movement while maintaining adequate light levels and humidity in a given area. Proper ventilation is about proper balance.

The challenging part of achieving this balance is that there is such a wide range of requirements for different plants. It is important to identify what is ideal for each variety that you are growing. It will not be feasible to have a perfect climate for each variety of plant, but you really should avoid grouping together plants with a wide difference in requirements. That would simply ensure that you are not doing very little properly.

Putting shade cloth over a greenhouse may lower the temperature to an acceptable level for your plants but that does not equal good ventilation. You may be depriving the plants of their critical light requirement plus you are not doing anything to enhance air movement.

Turning on an exhaust fan may create the required amount of air changes or movement, but with a temperature far below the plant optimum, your plants still will not achieve their potential. Fans also draw air in a straight line from intake to exhaust. This does not address “stagnant corners”.

Many times, light equals heat. They go up together and go down together. It is important to understand how and why they are controlled differently and where the overlap on that control is.

Generally speaking, proper air changes equals one air change per minute. Some plants require more and some can get by with less. For this, you will need to know what the air volume is for your building. It is a little trickier to calculate this on a gothic or quonset shaped structure. Using the length x width x 80% of peak height will give you a close enough number in either cubic feet or cubic metres.

With the next 4 posts we hope to create a more thorough understanding of how to achieve a good environment for your plants. This information will be helpful as to research options so that you can balance costs with benefits and return. Especially in the area of ventilation, many times expenses associated with proper ventilation will be offset by exponentially higher returns.