7 Questions to Ask Before Designing Your Greenhouse

1. What do you want to grow?

It sounds like a simple question, but your crop influences almost every decision that follows. Tomatoes, medical cannabis, lettuce, strawberries and young plants all have different requirements for temperature, humidity, light and growing conditions.

If you're still weighing up your options, we can help you understand which crops tend to work well in conditions like yours, and even which ones work well together. In a humid region, for example, melons may face fewer disease pressures than tomatoes. That can be useful information to have before you commit.

2. When do you need to be in the market?

Timing can significantly change the greenhouse you need.

In many regions, open-field crops enter the market at a predictable point in the season, and prices drop accordingly. If your goal is to supply outside that window, your greenhouse should be designed around the months you'll actually be producing rather than year-round capability you may never use.

On the other hand, if you're supplying a retailer that expects consistent volumes throughout the year, you may need a very different setup. Sometimes even more than one greenhouse type to keep production moving between crop cycles.

Understanding your commercial goals upfront means designing around the market you're trying to reach, rather than investing in capability you don't need.

3. Where does your water come from, and how much can you access?

Water availability and water quality both matter. Because there’s usually uncertainty about the composition and quality, and because of constant fluctuations, we recommend testing water samples. From there, we can determine whether filtration or treatment is needed, what nutrients need to be added, and what irrigation approach will work best for your crop and conditions.

When it comes to availability, we consider everything from municipal connections and boreholes to rain harvesting from the greenhouse roof and dam construction. We’ll help you find the best quality, most cost-and-resource-effective solution.

4. What energy sources are realistically available to you, and at what cost?

The energy available in your region can have a big impact on how your greenhouse is designed.

For many greenhouses, natural gas remains a common energy source. But natural gas can’t be found everywhere. Instead, some greenhouse structures use coal. However, this has a significant environmental impact and isn’t available in remote areas. Luckily, we specialize in designing suitable alternative energy systems like LPG, wood chips or geothermal energy. All combined with CO2 production from natural gas, LPG or liquid Co2. Each option comes with its own CAPEX and OPEX costs and savings, as well as practical considerations. 

The important thing is not choosing the most advanced system. It's choosing the one that works best for your location, crop and commercial goals.

5. What does your climate look like?

Heat, cold, humidity, wind, snow, sunlight and extreme weather conditions all influence how your greenhouse needs to perform.

We'll take your knowledge of the area into account, then check it against our own data and experience so that we're not only designing for an average year. A region might usually experience winter temperatures of around -20°C but occasionally drop much lower. Those extremes matter too, because the greenhouse still needs to protect your crop on those days.

Light is another important consideration. What is the radiation intensity during the growing season? How long are your summer days? How short or gloomy are your winter days? Generally, even 1% less light reaching the crop can mean around 1% less yield, which is why factors such as greenhouse positioning, cover material and artificial light systems make such a big difference.

6. What labor can you realistically access, and what does it cost?

Two very similar set-ups can look quite different depending on the labor available.

If manpower is readily available and affordable, a design that relies more on hands-on work can make good commercial sense. If labor is scarce or expensive – sometimes the cost of labor can reach around 50% of the total project expense – greater automation may be the smarter choice. Neither approach is better on paper. The right one is whichever matches your local situation.

7. How far are you from your market, and how often will you ship?

This has a big influence on what needs to happen after harvest.

If you're supplying locally and shipping daily, your cold-storage needs may be relatively limited. If produce needs to be stored for several days before travelling a longer distance, you'll need greater capacity. Some growers may only need enough storage to cover a weekend gap. Others may need to hold almost a full week's harvest before it leaves the farm.

Planning for this early means the post-harvest setup can be designed around the way you actually sell and distribute your crop.

Bringing it all together

Once we know your crop and understand your market, commercial goals, existing infrastructure and local conditions, our engineers convert that information into a comprehensive detailed quote, which can take three to five weeks. Because we're not simply pricing a standard greenhouse, we're making sure the proposed solution fits your crop, location and goals from the start.

The next step is designing and engineering your greenhouse. Here we start planning the structure, cover, infrastructure and systems for your project.

Considering a greenhouse project? Let’s talk. Contact us at contactus@netafim.com.