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I would like to ask you guys what do you know about the differences in using silver x black shade clothes.

I went to buy some black shade clothes and they recommended me to buy the silver one, because it would lower the temperatures inside the greenhouse, and also provide more difuse light, and reflecting most of the UV radiation back to space.

So, do you people have experienced using silver shade clothes? What were the effects? It is really better than black ones?


thanks in advance

after some days using the new silver shade cloth, I did'nt registered any differences in temperature. There is more light in the plants, and some are responding turning red, which probably means that UV continues or increased.

(the shade cloth is not metalic, it is just silver plastic)

As the sun became strong here in the southern hemisphere, I noticed that some plants were struggling. I found this shade cloth, used for growing lettuce (it is called “lettuce shade cloth” here), which cuts 20% of the radiation.





I liked the results. Plants were relieved but they are still under very strong light, I would say that it made no difference and that my plants are under full sun (moreover when compared to high latitudes sun).
Most of the plants kept the red/purple colors as a defense against the sun, indicating that the sun continued to be very strong under this shade cloth.
Maybe this Euphorbia is losing the purple colors…but it is not happening to other plants:







In the other hand, some “greener” plants seemed to have experienced some relief:

I tried one piece of what I think was called aluminized shade cloth. It worked well and is currently over my parking area to shade the truck. In theory it should reflect some heat upwards but I have no way to measure that and in my current application the area is open on the sides so there is no big heat gain. I didn't buy any more of it because the cost was about double so it didn't pencil out for me.