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Today we will look into Shade House or Green-Net house, Its benefits in gardening, Different colors of shadenets and How to Make GreenHouse or Polyhouse – Its Planning, Design Ideas and Construction of shade house at home gardening or terrace gardening level.
What is a Shade House?
Also called shadenet house or net house, green net house, green house, polyhouse, and so on.
A Shade house is a framed structure enclosed by nets or any other woven material of different percentages of light filtering, to allow only the required amount of sunlight, moisture and air to pass through the gaps. It creates an appropriate micro climate for proper plant growth.
The shade nets are made up of 100% Polyethylene thread with specialised UV treatment and they have different shade percentages or Shade factors i.e 15%, 35%, 40%, 50% 75% and 90% (for example 35% shade factor means – the net will cut 35% of light intensity and would allow only 65% of light intensity to pass through the net).
Each plant has its individual requirements for sunlight and shade and to create optimum climatic conditions, selection of the correct percentage of shade factor is very important.
Colors of Shadenets:
Presently shadenets are available in different colours i.e. white, black, red, blue, yellow and green and in combinations: like Green x Black – Black x Black – White x Black – Green x Green . Whatever it is the darker shade generally filters more sunlight and Green x Green shade – enhances the process of photosynthesis in plants resulting better foliage in ornamental plants.
Planning and Design of a Shade House:
The shade house structure should be planned taking into consideration the type of crop to be grown, locally available materials and local climatic conditions. I will only discuss some important points at home gardening or terrace gardening level, that’s is basics.
Site selection & Orientation: Single span structure may be oriented either in east-west or north-south direction but multispan structure should be oriented in north-south direction to ensure uniform light intensity.
Structure: It mainly the FRAME and CLADDING MATERIAL.
- FRAME: best material to use for framing is MS (Full form of MS is Mild steel). This can easily last for than 25 years depending on the guage you use. Here am using 16 guage material – like 3 inch diameter MS pipes for pillars, 2 inch pipes for top frame support. Plus you can plan and design decorative ideas like hooks for hanging pots, Then two step or three step pots stands, then plan one area for vertical garden using thick mesh support to hang vertical pots and also a provision for garden swing and things like that depending on your budget.
- Make sure you periodically perform anti-rust treatment by painting the MS material like once in 2 – 3 years or so.
- The Cheaper Alternative to MS is bamboo sticks but the life of this type of shade house is not more than 5 years or so.
- Now coming to the Shade Net Material, you can choose the Filter percentage depending on your local climate. In my zone, am using 50 percent green-green shade net which is the most commonly used everywhere. You need to tie the shade net cloth firmly at all ends and at multiple places to keep it taut and give it’s a professional look. Also remember to keep it open at atleast 2 sides to allow good air flow to your plants. And also giving some gaps at the side walls at different places is a good idea to allow air circulation.
- The Design and Decoration depends on your engineering skills as well as your budget and ofcourse the dimensions of the shade house.
- The cost of shadenet cloth differs from place to place and also on the percentage of sunlight filtering – like 50 percent shade net comes at the price of 1 to 2 dollar per square meter or even less than that. And the cost of MS framing will be about 2 – 3 dollars per square feet including material and labour.
Benefits of shade house in gardening and farming:
- Helps in proper growth and development of any type of plants like flower plants, ornamental plants, medicinal plants, vegetables & fruits specially in summer and hot places.
- Helps to enhance yield and prevent losses due to excessive heat.
- Protection against many pest attacks.
- Protects crops from natural weather disturbances such as wind, rain, hail stones, frost, bird and insects.
- Used in production of grafts and reducing its failure rate during hot summer days.
- Helps in creating favourable micro environment for production of Vermicompost.
- Other uses like Hardening of plants, terrace gardening, fencing and so on..
