Use of cold rooms in nursery warehouses

17 March 2025
Posted by Miv srl

The importance of cold storage doors in the nursery sector.

The positive temperature cold room is one of the fundamental elements in the field of horticulture and its cycles, both in production and in logistics.

Cold rooms are used in all branches of nursery, from ornamental to fruit or vegetable nursery up to forestry.

Obviously, depending on the sector, they are used in different ways and for different purposes and below we will see how cold rooms have a basic impact in ornamental nurseries (both floral and with plants) and in forestry.

Basically, cold rooms are used inside a nursery to be able to best preserve the bare root seedlings, especially in hot periods and in spring, thus delaying the beginning of the vegetative cycle; in forest horticulture, for example, the extracted seedlings are stored in special rooms with controlled humidity until they are sold or planted, thus ensuring both good maintenance and good rooting of the product itself.

Cold storage doors also are essential in the wine nursery sector and especially in the rootstock nursery because after the shoots have been cleaned and run through the fungicide solution, they undergo the first cycle of cold storage at a temperature of +5 to +8 °C, which is also repeated after the post-grafting stage until they are planted in the greenhouse.

Cold storage doors in the fruit and vegetable field.

But also in the fruit and vegetable field, cold storage facilities are an indispensable part of the distribution chain since for greater preservation of product freshness (especially when it comes to fresh vegetables such as salad), the harvest is immediately stowed inside humidity-controlled cold storage facilities with a temperature below 10 °C .

Similarly in the floral nursery sector, the cold rooms are used for the maintenance of the plants with particular attention to the floral part; in fact, cut plants and flowers are particularly subject to both possible diseases and premature wilting.

Precisely to ensure that they last for a long time, various refrigerated systems are used (which can also be used as a display) thanks to which it is possible to have two fundamental advantages: the first is that of having to change the water much less frequently compared to what happens with traditional solutions, while the second is that the plant species are prevented from getting sick, ruined or damaged, thanks to the low temperatures which allow the bacterial load of the water inside the containers to be kept under control.

Also for the horticultural sector, therefore, the importance of maintaining the “cold chain” is of fundamental importance in order to have fresh and well-preserved goods every day; the cold rooms that are used are of the positive temperature type with a temperature range that goes from 2 °C (minimum limit for flowers) to 8 °C (maximum limit for cut plants); they can therefore have different types of closure depending on the logistic point in which they are installed.

The doors are one of the most important points in the field of cold rooms but in the case of floriculture they take on an even more important aspect given the delicacy and sensitivity of this type of goods; these, in fact, not only must be perfectly insulating but, above all, they must allow rapid handling without the possibility of creating dangerous drafts and/or thermal shocks which could cause deterioration, especially if the load is cut flowers.

MIV Insulating Systems’ cold storage doors are therefore perfectly suited for use in floriculture.