What does the air duct temperature indicate?
Do you know that fluctuations in air temperature at the exit from the air nozzles (nozzles, cups) can lead to mushroom quality deterioration?
Under the same climate parameters, different mushrooms grow in different mushroom farms. Archive charts read using correctly selected instruments (sensors) are more or less different. Very often when light primordia with a thin cap occur or yellowed or rusty fruit bodies appear, growers do not consider checking the air temperature stability at the air duct entering the chamber.
All physiological and biochemical processes of fungi are associated with moisture evaporation rate from the surface of the oyster mushroom. The air relative humidity directly affects the evaporation rate.
If the temperature of the incoming air is unstable, then the humidity in the chamber also varies over wide range. The temperature of the incoming air has a big influence on the growing chamber climate. But this often remains imperceptible in the moisture archive charts. The fact is that in the chamber, instruments analyze mixed air from the duct more polluted with CO2, but stable in terms of climate. Not instrument is capable of showing a difference so small for its accuracy. But mushrooms do not grow according to the excellent data of the climate journal, but rather according to the ability to evaporate with more-less optimal or harmful evaporation rate. If the temperature difference becomes more than 1.0ᵒC in 5 minutes, the climatic parameters in the growing chamber will fluctuate too much for the proper development of healthy oyster mushrooms. That is why it is necessary to pay attention not only to chamber temperature and humidity readings!
It is more difficult to adjust climatic parameters of outside air during the seasons of cold and dry weather. In frosty weather it is necessary to apply high temperature to the energy vector and even simple control measures (opening / closing faucets) cause more significant temperature changes at the air duct than in case of lower temperature of the heat carrier. Switching on/off the adiabatic humidifiers (injectors, disk and ultrasonic humidifiers) for the treatment of dry air creates greater temperature fluctuations than in case of more humid air.
Incorrect climate program settings controlling the hot water faucet of heat exchanger, tend to open or close it too quickly. For example, in practice, according to the graphs, you can see how the temperature dropped by just 0.1 °C , the hot water tap opened slightly, raising it by a large degree comparing to given parameters before the crane was opened. Ask your technician to look at the settings. It is not recommended to change the settings yourself because of possible conditions deterioration!
Technical problems can also consist in non-fully closed faucet inlets, faulty faucets or their drives. It also makes sense to check the operation stability of the heating and cooling pumps. There are other possible malfunctions which could be identified by a skilled specialist.
By controlling the temperatures at the duct, you will not only get a more realistic picture of air treatment for your mushroom chamber, but also make timely decisions about the need for equipment adjustments and troubleshooting.