What is Floating Cover? What is it Good for?
Floating Cover, a Technique You Should Know
Protecting crops in a greenhouse or in a shade house is a technique that is becoming more and more specialized. Farmers are adapting these techniques to increase profit and reduce the cost of production as well as the effort needed to achieve results. Floating covers are one of the adaptations in which an extra layer of protection is added to crops in the form of a cloth that adds a second “roof” over them. This provides a series of benefits that we’ll discuss below.
Farming in a macro tunnel covered with non-woven thermal blanketing with perforated padding.
The installation of floating cover in macro tunnels or directly over the crop on the ground can be personalized according to the field and your needs.
Floating cover is used for crops that require a high temperature or that are sensitive to changing weather. The cover works like an extra shield with in a greenhouse, providing many of the same advantages and benefits as the greenhouse itself: a higher temperature, frost and rain protection, softening the change in temperature in the night and morning (since in arid regions the temperature drops during these times of the day), protection against pathogens like insects and fungus among others that damage crops. Of course, in addition to providing these benefits, floating cover takes care of forming the crop once the plants have reached the height of the cover so that they don’t become curved and so that they continue growing vertically.
Floating covers are ideal for crops that need more heat to develop optimally, and for crops that are extremely sensitive to changes in temperature between the day and night.
Why You Should Protect Your Crop with Floating Cover
With a support system for this kind of crop cover, your crop will receive some very important help: it will be protected and its growth will be improved. This covering provides the best conditions for your crop to grow and develop, and it keeps away damaging pathogens, that could stunt growth or lower quality.
Some types of crops require a lot of sunlight and energy to grow. Floating cover provides up to 90% more light thanks to its filters and at the same time it protects your crops from pathogenic insects like aphids.
These thermal blankets protect your crops against insects that carry pathogens as well as accelerating the ripening of the fruit.
The cloth used to make floating cover is the same as the sheets used to make a greenhouse. For this reason it is easy to replace or change if it gets damaged.
Installing floating cover is easy and simple; you can do it yourself. You only need some poles or stakes on which you can place the cloth (or you can hang it from the lateral wall supports in a greenhouse).
For all of the previously mentioned reasons, protecting crops with greenhouses and floating cover is becoming more and more common in modern vegetable farming.
If you have any doubts, questions or suggestions, please contact us at the following link for more information about frost blankets.
Floating covers are used for crops that require a high temperature or crops that are sensitive to abrupt changes in their environment.