Passive-solar greenhouse
Our project objective was to design, construct, and operate a commercialized (16' x 50') passive, solar greenhouse. The structure was originally intended as a vegetable forcing facility to produce vegetable crops in the off-season. Building and size constraints and economic considerations convinced us to use the greenhouse for producing bedding plants and vegetable starts in the spring, high value vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers) in the fall and forced bulbs in the winter. This crop sequence allows us to use the greenhouse all year without additional heat as the crops are adopted to the temperature regime of the greenhouse during each particular season. In our first season, the greenhouse performed beautifully. The lowest temperature recorded was 38/sup 0/F after 4 cold, cloudy days in February. The production of bedding plants has allowed us to diversify our products and the early transplants we produced were a great asset to our vegetable farming operation. Although construction cost (4.57 sq. ft.) is higher than that of a conventional polyethylene-covered, quonset-type greenhouse (approx. $1.92 sq. ft.), our annual operating cost is cheaper than that of a conventional greenhouse (0.49 cents sq. ft. versus 0.67 cents sq. ft.) due to a longer usable lifetime of the structure and the elimination of heating costs. Our structure has been toured by interested individuals, school and farm groups. We plan to publicize the structure and its advantages by promoting more visits to the site.
- Research Organization:
- Four Leaf Farm, Durham, NC (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG44-80R410140
- OSTI ID:
- 5632470
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/R4/10140-T1; ON: DE84000388
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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