Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Influence of microclimate control on the growth of asparagus under greenhouse in tropical climates

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
International Journal of Biometeorology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

High temperatures have become common in cities in Taiwan, and this phenomenon has spread to surrounding agricultural areas. Tainan, a city located in a tropical climate zone with agriculture as its primary development industry, is one of the cities considerably affected by the high temperature. High temperatures can reduce crop yields and even cause plant death, especially for vulnerable high-value crops, which are severely to microclimate conditions. Asparagus is a high-value crop that has long been cultivated in the Jiangjun District of Tainan. Recently, asparagus has been planted in greenhouses to protect against pests and natural disasters. However, the greenhouses can overheat. To identify the optimal growth environment for asparagus, this study applies vertical monitoring to record the temperature in the greenhouse and the soil moisture content of a control (canal irrigation) and an experimental (drip irrigation) group. When the surface layer of the soil exceeds 33°C, the tender stems of asparagus bloom readily, reducing its commercial value. Therefore, drip irrigation was conducted with cool water (26°C) to reduce soil temperature in summer and warm water (28°C) to increase soil temperature in winter. The study also recorded the growth of asparagus using daily yields measured by farmers during weighing and packing to understand the benefits of controlling the greenhouse microclimate. This study reports a correlation of 0.85 between asparagus yield and temperature and a correlation of 0.86 between asparagus yield and soil moisture content. The use of a drip irrigation system with a water temperature adjustment function not only saves up to 50% of water but also resulted in an average yield increase of 10% through maintaining stable soil moisture content and temperature. Therefore, the findings of this study can be applied to asparagus yields affected by high temperature and can solve the problems of poor quality in summer and low yield in winter.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

Data Availability

Data are available on request to the authors.

References

Download references

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Ministry of Education under the University Social Responsibility project: Implementation plan adapted to environmental change in Tainan coastal area. The content of this research paper is part of Yi-Wei Hsu’s master thesis. Thanks to Dr. Shing-Ru Yang for helping to facilitate the collaboration and to Chao-Ying Huang for providing the experimental site.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yu-Cheng Chen.

Ethics declarations

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hung, KA., Hsu, YW., Chen, YC. et al. Influence of microclimate control on the growth of asparagus under greenhouse in tropical climates. Int J Biometeorol 67, 1225–1235 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-023-02490-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-023-02490-8

Keywords

Navigation