Institute of Grassland and

Environmental ResearchPlant Growth Chambers & Rooms

A guide to The Plant Growth Controlled Environment Test Facility at IGER, designed,

manufactured and installed by Weiss Gallenkamp.

The Plant Growth Controlled Environment Test Facility at Aberystwyth’s Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research (IGER) is helping scientists develop the next generation of grassland crop, balancing nutrition and economics with the need to protect the environment. The facility is playing a key role in the development of new, sustainable grass varieties capable of providing high quality animal feed.

Designed, manufactured and installed by Weiss Gallenkamp, the facility houses six high specification plant growth rooms and eight large capacity cabinets that can be programmed for a wide range of simulated growing conditions. “The emphasis is on breeding environmentally-friendly crops that are drought and cold tolerant, need less fertilizer and cause less pollution, while still providing healthy and natural food for livestock,” says Dr Mike Humphreys, team leader of Grass Traits and Varieties Programme at IGER.

“This new facility allows us to simulate the growing conditions of grasses from the most northerly tip of Scandinavia to the coldest parts of the Tartra mountains in Poland and the driest regions of France.”

The technology provided by Weiss Gallenkamp, who have also installed 32 controlled environment rooms in the Scottish Agricultural Science Agency’s (SASA), is a vital element, as John Toler, Controlled Environment Operations Coordinator at IGER at the time of installation explained: “The new facility can be accurately programmed to provide a wide range of simulated growing conditions. All plant rooms and cabinets have temperature and humidity control, as well as feedback control of lighting intensity, thus ensuring repeatability of all the environmental conditions.”From the outset, Weiss Gallenkamp used their vast experience of project work to liase effectively and co-ordinate operations with other service contractors.

The early consultancy with IGER on product specification & design provided several benefits to the project:

• Avoided any unnecessary cost

• Maximised total project value for money

• Enabled easy maintenance with whole life service support

Special features

Weiss Gallenkamp utilised their vast knowledge & experience to create bespoke facilities at IGER, with some of the special features including:

Lighting

The criteria for growth lighting was that the intensity of 800 mmol.m-2s-1 (approx 65000 lux) was to be maintained over the entire temperature range of 10°C to 35°C (or even as low as 2°C) This presented a unique challenge due to the temperature dependent luminous output characteristics of fluorescent lamps as there is a dramatic fall in light output from the lamps as the temperature falls. Our solution to this problem was to produce a semi-enclosed lamp box with variable speed cooling fans controlled via a lamp-box temperature sensor. Therefore when the room was running at low temperatures, only a small quantity of room air was used to cool the lampbox, and when the room was running at high temperatures, a higher quantity of air was used. This maintained the temperature within the lampbox, or more specifically the temperature of the lamps themselves at an optimum temperature for light output. T5 high output lamps were used, and under optimum conditions, measured light intensity was up to 1200 mmol.m-2s-1 at a distance of 350mm from the lamps.

Energy Efficiency

The design brief was to pay particular attention to the energy efficient running of the climate conditioning systems for the growth rooms. We opted to utilise a chilled water cooling system (with separate water chillers for each room). The advantages of a chilled water system over direct refigeration is that one is able to more accurately control the coil temperature, and eliminate un-wanted latent cooling. This is particularly efficient when running at relatively high temperatures and humidities in the rooms as it means that the steam needed to maintain humidity is minimised. Additionally, because of the large thermal capacity of the system, the water chiller can be on/off cycled without compromising the stability of the room conditions.

Low temperatures

One each of the rooms and chambers were specially adapted with an extended temperature range down to a minimum of 2°C even with full growth lighting intensity. For the room, this meant supplementing the main chilled water cooling system with direct refrigeration and utilised an automatic defrost regime whereby the conditions within the room are not compromised during defrost. the low temperature cabinet was also adapted with dual cooling coils and automatic defrost.

The technology provided by Weiss Gallenkamp has already contributed to the successful use of hybrids developed in order to combine useful traits from species from two grass genera. Dr Mike Humphreys commented “What we have now been able to do, in a faster and more targeted way, is to simulate the exact cold temperatures in the new facility and study changes in gene activity under given conditions.”

Through the adoption of energy efficient lighting and the latest control technology all Weiss Gallenkamp Fitotron series plant rooms and cabinets now offer 25% greater energy efficiency, longer lamp life and true “dawn to dusk” simulation. Fitotron, from the Greek word Phytotron (plant house) allows

the researcher access to most world climatic conditions while eliminating the variability found in nature.

Our wealth of experience enables us to offer services for customer’s projects including:

• Turn-key projects

• On-site project management

• Cost control management

• Installation, commissioning and validation

• Full user, client co-ordination

• Training of customer’s own operating & service personnel

At the initial stages of an enquiry, Weiss Gallenkamp offer an on-site service to establish exactly what is needed to meet the customer requirement. It includes the application, the most suitable facility and site suitability to meet the customer’s needs.

• Consultancy and planning

• Development of systems to meet specified needs

• Design and build • Feasibility studies

• Fully customised facilities using established principles and technologies

• Modular “Walk-in” rooms to meet site restrictions • Range of standard & customised rooms

• Cost effective solutions

Units 37-38 The Technology Centre, Epinal Way, Loughborough, Leicestershire. LE11 3GE Tel: +44 (0)1509 631590 Fax: +44 (0)1509 211133

Email: enquiries@weiss-gallenkamp.com www.weiss-gallenkamp.com

Project management services

Consultancy service

Design examples include: