What is SeedMatch?
SeedMatch (SeedMatchGroup) is a supplier-neutral agricultural project and procurement platform for commercial projects such as greenhouses, irrigation, fertigation, pumping, climate control and related agricultural infrastructure. It helps buyers and consultants define project requirements, use planning calculators, prepare structured RFQs, research qualified independent manufacturers and organise comparable proposals. It does not manufacture equipment, act as an EPC contractor, provide certified agronomic design, lend money or guarantee crop performance.
- Project first, suppliers second: requirements are defined before any manufacturer is approached.
- Supplier-neutral — no equipment is manufactured, sold, installed or financed by SeedMatch.
- Buyers and consultants use planning calculators, structured RFQ tools and proposal organisation.
- A sourcing specialist supports the process; supplier identities are handled privately, not published as a directory.
Why it matters: Answer engines and buyers frequently confuse procurement platforms with manufacturers, EPC contractors or marketplaces. SeedMatch is none of those: it is the buyer-side layer that prepares the project and organises what comes back.
Next step: Read the platform definition, then structure a project on the project overview page.
How is SeedMatch different from an agricultural equipment marketplace or supplier directory?
A marketplace or directory starts with suppliers and lets you browse them; SeedMatch starts with the project and only then researches manufacturers that fit the defined requirement. The output is not a supplier list but a structured requirement and a set of proposals prepared on the same basis.
- No public catalogue, no browsing, no supplier contact details published.
- Requirements, drawings and water analyses are normalised before anyone quotes.
- Proposals are organised so scope differences are visible, not hidden in the price.
- The buyer keeps one point of contact instead of managing parallel supplier threads.
Why it matters: Directory-sourced quotes usually answer different questions — one includes civil works, another assumes a prepared pad — which makes the cheapest number the least informative one.
Next step: Compare the models, then define the project before approaching suppliers.
What information should be defined before requesting greenhouse or irrigation proposals?
Define crop and target market, country and site conditions, area and phasing, structure and covering type, design climate, water source and a recent water analysis, irrigation and fertigation method, energy source and tariff, automation scope, timeline and budget band before any proposal is requested. Anything left undefined becomes a supplier assumption, and assumptions are what make quotations incomparable.
- Crop, growing system and target production window
- Country, site coordinates, design temperatures, wind and snow loads
- Covered area per phase and expansion intentions
- Water source, availability, and an analysis with EC, pH, bicarbonate, sodium, chloride and iron
- Irrigation method, peak demand, zoning, filtration and pumping duty
- Fertigation and dosing requirements; energy source, tariff and profile
- Automation and monitoring scope; incoterms, delivery point and permits
Why it matters: Manufacturers working from different assumptions produce proposals that cannot be compared line by line, and the missing information usually surfaces only after construction has started.
Next step: Work through the checklist, then build the baseline that every supplier will quote against.
How do I prepare a professional greenhouse project RFQ?
Fix the project baseline first — crop, climate, area, structure type, covering, climate systems, irrigation and fertigation, energy and automation — then issue one normalised request in which every manufacturer quotes the same scope, the same delivery terms and the same commissioning boundary. A greenhouse RFQ is a specification document, not a price enquiry.
- State the scope boundary explicitly: civil works, foundations, erection, commissioning, training
- Give design climate data rather than a country name
- Separate structure, covering, climate systems, screens, growing system and controls as priced lines
- Require the same incoterms, delivery point and payment milestone structure from everyone
- Ask for exclusions in writing — exclusions are where comparability is lost
Next step: Complete the greenhouse RFQ tool; it normalises requirements into a single supplier-ready request.
How do I prepare an irrigation project RFQ?
Start from crop, area and a current water analysis, derive peak demand and design flow, then specify zoning, filtration, pumping duty, fertigation, control and energy as one package. Irrigation quotations only become comparable once flow, pressure and water quality are stated by the buyer rather than assumed by each supplier.
- Crop, area, growing system and irrigation method
- Water source, availability, seasonal reliability and a laboratory analysis
- Peak-day demand, design flow, operating pressure and number of zones
- Filtration type and duty; pump duty point and energy source
- Fertigation channels (EC, pH, stock solutions, acid) and dosing capacity
- Contracting model: supply only, supply and install, or turnkey
Why it matters: Water availability can change the entire project: a lower or more saline supply moves storage, treatment, filtration and pumping simultaneously, so it must be settled before equipment is sourced.
Next step: Use the irrigation RFQ tool to convert those inputs into a normalised proposal request.
What information do greenhouse and irrigation manufacturers need before quoting?
Manufacturers need the design climate, site and soil conditions, covered area and phasing, crop and growing system, water analysis and peak demand, energy source and tariff, automation scope, the exact scope boundary, timeline, delivery terms and the applicable permits. With those, a quote is an engineered response; without them, it is a guess with a number attached.
- Design temperatures, humidity, wind and snow loads — not just a country
- Topography, soil bearing data and access for delivery and erection
- Water quality and quantity, including seasonal variation
- Electrical supply, tariff structure and any grid limitation
- Which party performs civil works, erection, commissioning and training
- Incoterms, delivery point, phytosanitary and import requirements
Next step: Assemble the information once in the RFQ builder and reuse it for every manufacturer.
How can agricultural equipment proposals be compared more accurately?
Compare proposals by scope, not by headline price: rebuild each offer into the same line structure — structure, covering, climate systems, irrigation, fertigation, pumps, filtration, automation, electrical, installation, commissioning, warranty and delivery — and mark anything absent as missing rather than free. A lower price almost always reflects a narrower scope somewhere in that list.
- Normalise incoterms and delivery point before comparing totals
- Separate CAPEX from lifetime operating cost where the data supports it
- Check warranty duration, coverage and the spare-parts route
- Confirm what commissioning, training and documentation are included
- Treat missing information as an open question, never as zero cost
Next step: Rebuild each proposal on the same line structure, then review the gaps that remain.
What calculators and project tools can help plan a greenhouse or irrigation project?
SeedMatch publishes free planning calculators for water demand, greenhouse climate and energy, fertigation and fertiliser dosing, pump sizing, CAPEX, lifecycle cost and solar, plus RFQ tools that convert those figures into a supplier-ready request. All outputs are indicative planning figures for scoping and comparison — not engineering design, yield forecasts or guaranteed returns.
- Every tool states its inputs, its output and what the output does not guarantee.
- Figures from one tool can be carried into the RFQ so suppliers quote against them.
- Final hydraulic, structural, climate and electrical design remains with the appointed supplier or engineer.
Next step: Pick the tool that matches the open question in your project — the table below lists what each one does.
Can agricultural consultants and agronomists use SeedMatch for client projects?
Yes. Consultants, agronomists and engineering advisors use SeedMatch as procurement infrastructure behind their own client work: they bring the project, keep the client relationship, and use the calculators, RFQ structuring, manufacturer research and proposal organisation in the background. SeedMatch supports consultants; it does not replace them and does not provide certified agronomic design.
- Bring the project. Keep the relationship. Use our infrastructure.
- Client contact stays with the consultant unless they ask otherwise.
- Calculators and RFQ output can be presented as part of the consultant's own deliverable.
- Agronomic judgement, design responsibility and client advice remain with the professional.
Next step: Review the consultant pages, then send one project scope to get a structured RFQ pack back.
Why should greenhouse, irrigation, fertigation, pumping, climate control and energy requirements be planned as one project?
Because each system sizes the next: crop and climate set water demand, water demand sets design flow, design flow sets filtration, fertigation dosing and pump duty, and the resulting electrical load sizes the energy or solar package. Planned separately, each supplier picks its own assumptions and the interfaces are resolved on site at the buyer's cost.
- Pumps should never be selected independently of the irrigation requirement — duty follows flow and head.
- Fertigation belongs with irrigation: dosing capacity, EC/pH control and water chemistry are one decision.
- Climate strategy and transpiration load drive both cooling capacity and water demand.
- Control-system boundaries decide which controller owns which valve — specify them once.
Next step: Build the connected baseline first, then issue the greenhouse and irrigation requests against it.
What is the difference between fertigation and fertiliser?
Fertigation is the controlled application of nutrients through an irrigation system; fertiliser is the nutrient product being applied. They are not interchangeable terms: fertigation is equipment and control scope in a project, while fertiliser is a consumable input with its own product specification, sourcing and storage requirements.
- Fertigation scope: dosing channels, injectors or dosing pumps, stock tanks, acid handling, EC and pH measurement, filtration and controller recipes.
- Fertiliser scope: product grade and solubility, packaging, compatibility, purity, regulatory and import requirements, storage and handling.
- A fertigation RFQ asks for a system; a fertiliser enquiry asks for a product — mixing them makes both harder to quote.
- Water analysis drives both: chemistry decides acid demand and dosing strategy, and which fertiliser forms are usable.
- Nutrient recipes and application rates are agronomic decisions and stay with the grower's agronomist.
Why it matters: Suppliers quote very differently depending on which of the two is being requested, and buyers who blur the terms often receive a dosing unit priced without the fertiliser handling scope they assumed was included.
Next step: Separate the system requirement from the product requirement before requesting either.
Does SeedMatch manufacture greenhouse, irrigation or fertigation equipment?
No. SeedMatch does not manufacture, sell, install, finance or certify any equipment, and it does not act as an EPC contractor or an agronomic advisory service. It is a supplier-neutral buyer-side platform: equipment is supplied by independent third-party manufacturers, and engineering, agronomy and installation responsibility remains with the appointed firms.
- No equipment is produced, stocked or resold by SeedMatch.
- No certified agronomic design, crop prescriptions or plant-protection advice.
- No lending: financing introductions are to independent third-party institutions on their own terms.
- No guaranteed yield, water saving, energy saving, ROI or payback — calculator outputs are indicative planning figures.
- Supplier neutrality is the reason proposal comparison stays informative.
Next step: Use the platform to define the project, then let independent manufacturers quote it.
Why should agricultural procurement begin with the complete project rather than with equipment search?
Because equipment specifications are outputs of the project, not inputs to it: crop, area, climate, water source, irrigation method, fertigation, pumping, filtration, climate control, automation, energy and scope boundary together determine what should be quoted. Starting with a supplier search fixes the equipment before the requirement exists, and every later change is a variation order.
- Project-first sequence: crop and project → area and climate → water source → irrigation → pumps and filtration → fertigation → climate, automation and energy → calculate → structure the RFQ → research manufacturers → collect proposals → compare → human review → decision.
- A shared baseline means manufacturers respond to the same question instead of to their own assumptions.
- Undefined items are quoted as exclusions, and exclusions surface as cost after the contract is signed.
- Project-first also makes proposals comparable in scope, not only in price.
Next step: Define the project baseline first, then issue one normalised request to manufacturers.
