|
 aving a cooler is an important part of the flower farming business. It never fails that flowers will bloom on days when there isn’t a market for them. It is some unwritten law among the flower kingdom. But, having cold storage allows us as growers to harvest flowers when they are at their best, and hold them at an ideal temperature until our next market.
The best part is the nice folks at CoolBot have gone ahead and invented an inexpensive cooling system. The CoolBot system (patent pending) sells for $300, and is available online at www.storeitcold.com. Flower farmers are all about saving money on equipment, and spending it elsewhere on such things as new flower variety seeds, bulbs and plants.
An example of flowers that would be harvested early would be sunflowers. They are usually harvested just as the first petal starts to lift off the disk. The varieties grown on our farm have a vase life of 10-14 days. Regular market customers understand the freshest sunflowers are at the “cupped stage,” and not wide open.
The CoolBot system was actually designed for the small scale flower grower to build himself with the use of a standard window air conditioning unit. Another benefit of using this system is it does not dry out the flowers since cut flowers need to remain hydrated.
We have used the system, a 12,500 BTU LG air conditioning unit in an 11 x 14 space, purchased on sale for around $250 from a big box home improvement store. The LG unit is the brand of first choice recommended by the CoolBot inventor. They run even during the fall and winter when outside temperatures fall. This feature is not true of other brands.
We were able to maintain temperatures around 38-40 degrees Fahrenheit (3.3-4.4 Celsius) with 3” of Styrofoam insulation on the ceiling and walls. We didn’t have any problems with freeze-ups. The recommended amount of insulation is 4.” Therefore, with an additional inch of insulation, we should be able to maintain temperatures closer to 36-38F (2.2-3.3C). The additional insulation will prevent the air conditioning unit from having to work so hard. A feature of the CoolBot system is that it is programmed to shut off the air conditioner compressor unit when it can’t access the BTUs of cooling power, therefore saving electricity. This size air conditioning unit runs on standard 110 wiring, and does not require hiring an electrician to run special wiring.
This is a small barn with one stone wall built into the side of a hill. When we purchased the CoolBot system, it was our intention to cool an area 18 x 14. In order to cool an area this size a 24,000 BTU LG air conditioning unit would be required. This size was not available at the time of our purchase since it was late summer. Being hindered by the current size of the room, and with two farmers markets to support, it is our intention to move up to the larger unit. This larger size unit will require the use of 220 wiring. Even though this size area is slightly larger than recommended for the size of the air conditioning unit, it isn’t our intention to be able to get the temperatures down in the low 33-34F (0.5-1.1C) range. We are actually fine with temperatures around 38F (3.3C).
We have found the use of the CoolBot system to be the most economical flower cooler with significantly lower operating costs than an industrial cooler. The system worked great for us even when we were opening and closing the doors all day while transporting cut flowers to the barn from the field. The temperature in the room would jump a couple of degrees; however, it didn’t take long for it to cool back down.
Here's a chart showing the size of air conditioning unit that the inventor of CoolBot recommends when cooling a well-insulated (4” Styrofoam in the walls and ceiling) room:
  
|
