What to Look For in a Plant Growth Chamber Control System
Jul 22, 2024
Ensuring the success of plant research or production in controlled environments hinges on many critical equipment components. One of which that is common to all plant growth chambers or growth rooms is the control system. This system serves as the control hub of the chamber, ensuring the core functions (temperature, light, humidity, airflow, CO2, etc.) are carried out and desired conditions are met according to the programmed schedule.
Without a robust and reliable plant growth chamber control system, maintaining vital parameters for plant research is impossible, and entire research or production processes can be jeopardized.
In this article, we’ll explore the important details of plant growth chamber control systems, including their key features and capabilities, safety considerations, and recommended strategies for selecting the best control system for your needs.
Quick Takeaways:
- A control system is essential for maintaining precise environmental conditions in plant growth chambers and rooms that carry out plant science experimentation and production.
- Key features of an effective control system include an intuitive user interface and comprehensive data management capabilities.
- Advanced control systems ensure human and mechanical safety for hazard prevention and for regulatory compliance.
- Remote access and control features allow flexible and convenient interaction with the controlled environments from various locations.
- Customizable control systems are sometimes required for more advanced or complicated research and/or facility needs - providing reliability and efficiency for diverse applications.
What Is a Plant Growth Chamber Control System?
A plant growth chamber control system acts as the heart and soul of the controlled environment, allowing users to precisely manage important chamber environmental conditions such as temperature, light, humidity, and CO2 levels. Using a control system, users can create the exact conditions necessary to conduct plant science related experiments that are both reliable and repeatable.
Plant growth chamber control systems support several crucial aspects of plant science research. Three general categories include:
- Ease of Use: The user interface is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, minimizing the need for extensive manuals and enabling researchers, phytotron or facility managers to operate the chamber efficiently.
- Human Safety: Advanced safety features ensure the safety of users by detecting and mitigating hazards.
- Compliance: The control system must meet stringent regulatory standards, ensuring that it adheres to safety and operational guidelines required for reliable and safe plant research.
Key Features of a Plant Growth Chamber Control System
Plant growth chamber control systems for advanced plant science research or commercial horticulture operations come with several key features that ensure optimal performance and reliability. Essential features that make a chamber control system effective include:
Ease of Use
When conducting complex experiments and research, the research should be the focus of the user, not the control system. High-quality plant growth chamber control systems are user friendly and are easy to learn how to program. It’s a critical piece of equipment to be sure, however it is there to support research and/or production and enable the grower to get on with their work, and should not be a distraction or burdensome to learn how to operate.
It’s important to note that control system users include more than just researchers or people conducting the experiments. Facility managers, service technicians, research assistants, and students may all need to use the control system over the course of an experiment. The system must include the features and data needed by each user group to keep the chambers operating in accordance to diverse user requirements and ever growth protocols.
As such, good plant growth chamber control systems, while highly sophisticated, are not too complicated for non-technical users. They strike the right balance between remaining easy to use while also providing all necessary features to prevent downtime and optimize valuable research time.
Hardware Control & Safety Standards
The hardware components of a plant growth chamber play a crucial role in maintaining and controlling the internal environment. These components include sensors, controllers, and actuators that work together to accurately regulate temperature, light, humidity, CO2 levels, irrigation, airflow and other environmental parameters.
Meeting safety standards such as Canadian Standards Association (CSA) is vital for protecting users and ensuring system reliability. Compliance with these standards means the control system has undergone rigorous testing to prevent accidents and malfunctions, ensuring safe and reliable operation.
Human & Mechanical Safety
At the time of writing, certifications related to safe usage of potential hazards such as A2L refrigerant are becoming important as they ensure the safety of users in case of refrigeration leaks. These certifications require the control system to have safety features like automatic shutdowns and alarms to safely handle potential dangers that come with low global warming potential refrigerant.[1]
Remote Access & Control
Control systems enable access control features that enhance safety and protect experiments. For example, service technicians can lock out remote users while performing maintenance, ensuring that no changes are made inadvertently. Principal Investigators can limit what research assistants are able to control to reduce the risk of experiments being compromised due to lack of experience or user error.
At the same time, remote access means users can interact with the system through various access points, including local displays and remote control software. This flexibility allows for convenient monitoring and control of the chamber from different locations – dramatically enhancing user convenience.
Data Management
Distinguishing between different types of data helps streamline important processes. Conviron control systems, for example, separate data needed by researchers and technicians. Researchers can then focus on experimental data, while technicians access maintenance and operational data, without having to mine through datasets not relevant to their specific work.
Control systems can also simplify data management by providing pre-formatted files and remote access capabilities. This makes it easy to extract, analyze, and report data without extensive formatting or technical adjustments. Finally, audit reports are critical in ensuring data integrity, documenting all actions and changes within the system, providing a transparent and tamper-proof record or when it comes time to share one’s methodology for publication in peer reviewed journals.
Advanced Features
Advanced features like ramp or step capabilities allow the simulation of real-world conditions by quickly shifting between set points (step changes) or gradually changing parameters (ramping). This flexibility can be crucial for experiments requiring specific growth condition changes for the plants and adherence to methodology protocols.
An example of step transition below:
In ramp mode below, the chamber changes process at a defined rate between timeline target setpoints.
A consistent interface across plant growth chamber models facilitates ease of use. As users grow accustomed to setting programs, schedules and extracting data they can apply their skills to operating any chamber without additional training.
However in some cases large phytotrons also incorporate control/monitoring of greenhouses, weather stations, boilers/chiller, irrigation and other diverse equipment. In this case an upgrade to a customized control solutions platform can prove advantageous in terms of serviceability, scalability, and flexibility to manage your facility exactly the way you like. Bespoke advanced controls solutions enable researchers and growers to control and monitor a more diverse set of variables and equipment. The diagram below provides one such example of a plant centric controls solution that is purpose-built for a highly diverse plant growth research and/or production facility.
Finding the Right Control System for Your Needs
Finding the right control system to meet your research or commercial horticulture needs may require an "off the shelf" solution that is already integrated with your plant growth chamber / room or it may require a customized solution. A high-quality control system is one that is safe, reliable easy to use. It should also be adaptable for several key user groups - including researchers, students, production personnel, facilities staff, and service personnel.
