816-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 23, 1991
Starting A Greenhouse? Consider These Suggestions
ANDY ANDREWS
Lancaster Farming Staff
NEW HOLLAND (Lancaster
Co.) The trick is going wide.
“My suggestion on a freestand
ing greenhouse will be to go as
wide as possible,” said Tim
Weaver, greenhouse specialist for
D&L Growers, on Monday at New
Holland Vegetable Day at Summit
Valley Elementary School.
“Once you pick your width,
you’re stuck with it,” he said.
“You can’t go any wider. You can
always go longer, but you can’t go
wider.”
Weaver spoke to about 45 far
mers who wanted information on
building and maintaining
greenhouses.
Plan for expatosion
The greenhouse specialist said
that fanners should plan their
greenhouse for expansion. He said
farmers should have an area set
aside where greenhouses can be
placed and perhaps lengthened.
Farmers should consider two
types of greenhouse gutter
connect and freestanding. Gutter
connect houses use an arch and
crossbraces along with bar widths
from 18-, 20-, 21-, 24-, and27-foot
6-inch lengths (across the bottom)
and in sizes 48 feet, 96 feet, and
144 feet. Freestanding green
houses are quanset-type that
require gables at the end, made of
polycarbonate or figerglass.
A popular freestanding size is
30-foot width, on 48, 96, or
144-foot length. (The length is
measured m 48-foot increments
because of the standard 100-foot
length of plastic layering, which
will be doubled back for extra
insulation).
In cither case, the types will
require cither polyethylene (a clear
pastic that costs about 7 cents a
square foot, the most popular and
least expensive type), polycarbo
nate that offers double-layer insu
lation, and a corrugated fiberglass
(single-layer insulation).
Poly covering
Weaver recommends the
polyethylene covering because it is
inexpensive and durable.
"If possible, always position
your freestanding greenhouses
from east to west,” he said,
because of the direction of the sun.
Especially in gutter-connect
greenhouses, the gutter itself will
cause shadowing. If the gutter is
oriented in the correct north-south
direction, according to Weaver,
the shadow will “move across
your crop to give you an even type
of flow,” he said.
“You should space your frees
tanding greenhouse in such a way
that there’s ample room between
them for snow removal,” said
Weaver. The snow will deposit in
the center of two greenhouses, and
must be removed. The farther apart
the greenhouses are, the better. If
the snow isn’t removed, the struc
ture could collapse.
The next important considera
tion is the type of benching to hold
the crops.
Any material
“You can lake benches and
make them out of any material you
want to,” he said. “I’ve seen cin
derblock, 2 x 4s, and snow fence.
I’ve seen all the way up to
expanded metal benching, which
is probably the most expensive you
can buy.”
Weaver said farmers should
consider the “bottom line” when
choosing a bench. “Don’t skip on
the benches,” he said. “Remem-
ber, the benches are very important
because they allow the maximum
amount of square footage you need
to grow your crop.”
Moving benches are best,
according to Weaver, because they
provide more space to grow more
crop, provide more return for
investment, and put “more money
in your pocket,” he said, than fix
ed benches.
Weaver offered an example of
savings using fixed benches on a
30-foot wide by 96-foot long
greenhouse. In die fixed bench
example, farmers would be able to
grow 2,028 square feet of crops,
out of a total 0f2,880 square feet of
available space. But for moving
benches, the total square footage
for growing crops is larger
2,568 square feet.
More growing area
“So what you’ve resulted in is
about 21 percent more growing
area and more bench space in the
same greenhouse simply by using
rolling benches,” said Weaver.
“You’re going to get a quicker
return and you’re going to break
even and get ahead much quicker if
you can increase production.”
Farmers can make their own
rolling benches simply by putting
uprights on and rollers on a table
and running the table back and
forth. The entire table area must be
level. The legs can be placed every
6 feet and anchored into footers of
either gravel or concrete.
Weaver also said that heat
requirements depend on the struc
ture. Each individual structure
must be taken into consideration,
but the structure should be double
covered with polyethylene.
“The advantage of the double
covering over the single covering
is that it saves about 30 percent of
the heat right off the bat,’ ’ he said.
Heating requirements
There are more gas-fired heat
ing units available than liquid
propane or oil heaters. The heating
requirements depend on the BTU
(Turn to Page BIT)
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Dairylea, also, has Farm Resource Specialists
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your productivity and profitability.
Tim Weaver, greenhouse specialist for D&L Growers,
Litltz, spoke to farmers who wanted information on building
and maintaining greenhouses on Monday at New Holland
Vegetable Day.
Dairy farmers like Norm Torrance have
maintained a longstanding partnership with
Dairylea because of the cooperative’s ongoing
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Pairylea
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Call Shirley at 1-800-654-8838
MEM
M
MEANS MOM
P.O. Box 4844, Syracuse, NY 13221
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