OPINI E EN ACHTERGROND Always constant temperatures in new storehouse The business move within the Netherlands in 2012, from the village of Waddinxveen to the southern village of Numansdorp, provided potato grower Jan Cees van der Maas with the opportunity of having a completely new storehouse built for long-term storage. He chose a fully-insulated store from Altez Agrinbo-Geerkens from the Belgian village of Tielt. The store now offers him the opportunity of keeping the storage temperature of French-fry potatoes always constant under extreme weather conditions, and with a minimum of energy and sprout-prohibiting agents. t has been six years since Jan Cees van der Maas moved his arable farm from Waddinxveen to Numansdorp. He exchanged his 80 hectares - because of nature planning – for a complete 130 hectare farm in a polder where until 2007 the 1,100 hectare crop farm Ambachtsheerlijkheid Cromstrijen had been. The new place gave Van der Maas the opportunity of setting up state-of-the-art farm buildings that will give him years of good use. He has therefore decided to go for a well-defined, total concept. I Modern threesome Exactly in the corner of a spacious plot, adjoining two straight roads with endless rows of trees, a big piece of land is to be used for both new storehouses and a private dwelling. The new house will be built on an ancient mound, which has housed farm buildings for many years. The only old building that is still there is a weighbridge, which used to be the property of Ambachts manor. He’ll leave the weighbridge because it’s still functioning properly, Van der Maas says. In addition, he has chosen a combination of three farm buildings. This threesome will consist of a 25x40 m machinery shed, a spacious roofed-over transhipment space or outside storage of roughly the same dimensions, two silos of 400 tons each for the storage of wheat, and an insulated potato store. The storehouse is fitted out with a 25x48 m grid floor and has three units of 1,000 tons of storage capacity each. Heat more troublesome than cold When designing the potato store, he went for an optimal long-term storage facility without mechanical cooling. ‘If you want to store potatoes for a long period of time, it’s important to keep the storage temperature as constant as possible for the entire storage period’, Van der Maas explains. ‘The reason for this is that each temperature fluctuation may stimulate the start of a process of respiration and germination in the potato and, the result is weight losses, a lower frying quality, a shorter storage life and subsequently less income from storage fees. The thing is that it’s more difficult to keep out the heat than the cold, construction consultant Frank Hoeckx of Altez adds to Van der Maas’ explanation. ‘When there is a sharp frost, the temperature of the surface of the walls and the roof is more or less the same. In the case of a hot autumn or spring day, the temperature of the dark roof surface can increase rapidly as a result of the sun rays. It would be a good idea to start using white roofing instead of the darker ones, for example. They partly reflect the sunlight as a result of which the temperature won’t rise too much. However, there isn’t a single Dutch building inspector who would allow this’, is Hoeckx’s experience, which means that builders and clients have to reconcile themselves to this disadvantage. Town councils usually demand the use of black roofing, and this also applies to Van der Maas. 24 Potato World 2013 • number 3 Pagina 23
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