Greenhouse automation
The losses that cost most under cover are caused by conditions moving faster than a person can respond. We put sensors in the crop and let the house respond to what the air and the root zone are actually doing.
An unvented house in Kenyan midday sun passes 40 °C easily. Capsicum and tomato shed flowers they have already made once the house holds above about 32 °C, and that loss is irreversible.
Held above about 85 % relative humidity overnight, a house invites botrytis and powdery mildew. On bright days a sealed house can pull CO₂ from about 420 ppm down below 250 ppm in a couple of hours — and below roughly 300 ppm, CO₂, not water or fertiliser, becomes what limits growth. Nothing on the plant shows it.
How it works
Independently controlled zones on your existing main, one soil probe per zone, watering in short pulses one zone at a time.
Extractor fans stage up as the house warms, and also on humidity and CO₂. At least one bank runs variable speed, because all-or-nothing extraction produces exactly the swings the crop cannot tolerate.
Fixed cameras, one per zone, photograph the same frame every day so change is visible, not merely photographed. Images are analysed and flagged for your agronomist.
Phase 1 water and air; Phase 2 vents, light and cameras; Phase 3 fertigation once the return is proven.
What you get
Extraction driven by temperature keeps the house out of the band where pollen fails.
A dated record of when conditions were risky — which is what a spray programme should be built on, rather than a calendar.
Tank low, house above 32 °C, humidity above 85 % overnight, CO₂ below 300 ppm in daylight, a sensor gone silent, a valve open too long, mains failure.
Every valve and fan can be switched from your phone, and the manifold keeps a manual bypass.
The extractors are asked to manage temperature, humidity, CO₂ and — if a burner is present — air safety. These conflict: venting to cut humidity on a cold night costs you temperature.
Our controller resolves them in a fixed order set at commissioning: worker safety first, then temperature (because flower abortion is irreversible), then humidity (disease), then CO₂ (growth).
Greenhouse plastic plus the canopy leaves nowhere near enough light for a panel, so sensors inside the house are wired and low voltage. That is an upgrade: a battery sensor has to sleep to survive and is blind between reports, so a twenty-minute temperature spike never happened as far as it is concerned. A wired sensor reports continuously.
Equipment
Keeps a greenhouse in range without someone watching it.
Heat, humidity and the conditions that drive disease.
The air in greenhouses, sheds and stores.
Photographs of the crop, checked for disease and stress.
Opens and closes irrigation from your phone, or automatically.
How wet each block really is, at root depth.
Questions
No. Camera images are analysed and flagged for review. The system suggests; your agronomist decides.
Valves fail shut. The urgent risk is the fans stopping on a hot afternoon, so we recommend manual vents that open without power, a small UPS to keep alerts going, and a generator changeover for at least one fan bank where one exists.
Yes. The system is designed in three phases. Most houses start with water and air and add the rest once the return is proven.
We specify and control the fans; supply can be quoted separately. Fan sizing follows the floor area — roughly 3 m³/min of extraction per m² in a hot climate, with inlet vents at least 1.5× the fan outlet area.
The first conversation is a site visit: we walk the farm with you and understand what you grow or keep and what is going wrong. No cost, no commitment. Buy outright, lease, or pay as you go by M-Pesa.