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Cards of shadow

Create a Helioclim file


  • Calculating shading in a plot requires radiation data specific to that plot.

  • Use free data, monthly averages: HelioClim-3 (3 years of free data: 02/2004 to 12/2006)

Go to HELP and DEMO

helioclim

1 Field Add meteo data, indicate False

2 Field End date, indicate 2006-12-31

3 Field Time step, indicate Month

4 Click on the button Process

helioclim

5 In window Result file, click on the mouse button and save, keeping only the location details: Helioclim_SaintJeanLeBlanc__lat47.893_lon1.936 (if you can't see the Process button on your small screen, press the interval key to access it!)

helioclim

6 Click in the list on Save content as... and save Capsis-installeur -> data -> ecoaf -> helioclim

helioclim

The files are already present in the installer.

Visualising light distribution


distribution de lumière

1 Click in the list on Tool box

2 In Available tools, click on Ecoaf Radioactive Balance

3 Click on the button OK

4 Click on the button Browse

distribution de lumière

5 In window Open, select the file Helioclim

6 Click on the button Open

distribution de lumière

7 Click on the button Process

Shading parameters


  • Divide the plot into squares measuring 1 m to 5 m (smaller squares are possible but take care with calculation time), covering the entire surface, including strips of vegetation.

  • Calculating shading is only useful when the trees have grown enough to have an impact. What's more, the transparency of a young crown varies greatly depending on pruning and thinning.

  • Summer transparency is provided by crownOpennessWithLeaves in the file treeSpecies ; These values were deduced from photos, or where this was not yet possible, from an average value.

  • Winter transparency is provided by crownOpennessWithoutLeaves in the file treeSpecies ; they are equal to transparency in summer for evergreen species, and 0.9 otherwise.

  • Two dates in Julian days are entered for the entire plot to define the vegetation period; find the correspondences with the dates with, for example, on the website calendrier-365.fr

  • The final Julian day is larger than the initial Julian day: we can't define the winter period in one go, we have to do it twice.

EcoAF radiation balance tool, from June to September after 30 years of growth

Densified: 1474 groves, 10 m between groves in all directions

distribution de lumière

584 groves, 16 m between groves in all directions

distribution de lumière