Greenhouse project planner: crop, climate, size and water before the RFQ
Work through five short steps — crop and market, site and climate, size and technology level, water and fertigation, energy and budget — and finish with a structured planning summary you can carry straight into the RFQ builder. Everything you type stays in your browser until you choose to share it.
This is a planning tool for commercial growers, operators, investors and public agriculture projects, not an engineering design. No yield, price, supplier or delivery is guaranteed, and buyers are never connected to suppliers automatically.
Method and decision path
How to use this result in a commercial project
Use the result to test scope and compare scenarios. It is not a design, agronomic prescription, financing offer or supplier quotation.
- 1. Enter site evidence
Replace defaults with measured area, climate, water, energy, crop and commercial assumptions.
- 2. Test scenarios
Change one assumption at a time and record the effect on capacity, cost, demand or return.
- 3. Validate the duty
Ask the relevant agronomist, engineer or financial adviser to check the inputs and constraints.
- 4. Prepare a private RFQ
Carry the confirmed scope into a human-reviewed brief so written offers can be compared on the same basis.
Final specifications, performance, prices, supplier participation and timing depend on the site and written supplier responses; none is guaranteed by this calculator.
Step 1 of 5: Crop and market
0% of all fields answered
Start with what you intend to produce and for whom. Crop and market decide the climate target, the growing system and the equipment level — not the other way round.
e.g. beef tomato, coloured pepper, cucumber, leafy greens, cut flowers, seedlings
e.g. tonnes per year, kg/m²/year, or plants per cycle
Year-round, seasonal, or targeting a specific market window
Prefer the full checklist in one page? Open the greenhouse RFQ builder, see a budgetary cost range per m² from these answers or read why planning should start with the crop and climate.
Questions growers ask before the RFQ
What should I decide before choosing a greenhouse supplier?
Crop and target market, production target, site climate, growing area, technology level, water source, water quality and volume, energy availability, budget range and timeline. This planner walks through those in order so every supplier quotes the same project.
How do I calculate the greenhouse size I need?
Work backwards from the production target: required annual volume divided by a realistic yield per square metre for your crop, climate and technology level, plus space for paths, head station, packing and future phases. Enter your target here and check it against the size planner and investment calculators.
Why does water quality matter before the RFQ?
Sodium, chloride, bicarbonate and iron levels change the irrigation, fertigation, filtration and treatment design, and in some cases the growing system itself. A quotation prepared without a water analysis is usually re-priced later.
Is this planner a technical design?
No. It is a structured planning tool that organises your own inputs so a project can be reviewed and quoted on one basis. It is not an engineering design, and it does not guarantee yields, prices, suppliers or delivery.
What happens after I complete the planner?
Your answers stay in your browser and are carried into the greenhouse RFQ builder, where you can complete the remaining detail and export a supplier-neutral RFQ document. Nothing is sent to any supplier automatically; projects are reviewed by the human team, generally from an expected total project value of USD 250,000.
Illustrative project summary
1 ha multi-span tomato house
A new commercial entrant builds a first multi-span block with fertigation, insect screens and a basic climate computer.
1 ha · Multi-span polyhouse · Tomatoes
Indicative full greenhouse project CAPEX
USD 575K – USD 1.56M
Illustration only, not a real project or quotation. This is the structure, equipment and site-works budget for the example greenhouse, not the price of this calculator’s individual system, seeds or inputs, and not a result calculated from your entries. Excludes land, permits, packhouse, financing costs and working capital.
Based on the published commercial greenhouse cost benchmark. Written offers require a private project review; commercial projects start from USD 250K.