Greenhouse farming continues to gain popularity in the country and this construction that uses plastic or net has become the choice of some farmers in the country.
Right now there has been a great awareness of this agriculture as many farmers have been eager to get a big profit but unfortunately they do not have enough experience with this technology. Many companies involved in the creation of greenhouses say that this cultivation is like a new mineral mine in the sense that it offers many profitable commercial opportunities that no farmer would like to miss.
It is true that someone else may look at this technology from a different perspective, but without a doubt, this agricultural technology has advantages as follows:
• Helps protect vegetable crops from heavy rains and strong winds.
• Inside this house (greenhouse), the temperature usually rises every time according to the need for a certain stage of the relevant crop, a situation that leads to crops growing quickly and harvested earlier than crops grown outside in the fields.
• Within this infrastructure, drip irrigation is usually used and thus helps to save the amount of water used, and makes crop production not dependent on rain.
• The farmer can plant and harvest his crops during the period when the price of the relevant crop is high
• By using good plans, there is a possibility that the farmer will return the costs he invested within two to three years.
CHALLENGE
However, the farmer should be aware that the benefits of this production outlined above do not fall from heaven, there are three main challenges that he will have to fully face these are:
COST
A farmer needs to have the capital to start this type of farming or to have a guarantee that will enable him to get loans from banks and other financial institutions, unfortunately many small farmers do not have the ability to do both and that is why in our country many citizens consider this farming to be of rich people or those of middle status, most of whom are employed to provide them with a guaranteed income to afford the initial expenses.
COURSE MANAGEMENT:
Since the cultivation and development of crops within this infrastructure is done by controlling the required weather conditions, the production of crops in this way requires a great control of the temperature and humidity level to ensure that they do not change throughout the time. On
large projects, this control is done using special high-tech equipment that a small farmer cannot afford to have.
So for small farmers they need to spend a lot of time inside these structures to ensure that the level of temperature and humidity is as needed at all times.
Structures like this make it easy to get hot during the hot sun, so it's good to make sure the humidity is controlled. This can be
controlled by allowing adequate ventilation which should also be easy to operate. So it is important for
regions where the temperature is high and thus causing the temperature inside these structures to be greater than what is needed for crops to grow well
• It is also good to have reliable and well-informed workers to manage this agriculture and the ability to face
any challenges that may arise during production.
DISEASE AND PEST CONTROL:
This can be a big challenge for this production. In order to return high investment costs, crops such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and green peppers can be planted. Unfortunately, these crops are in the same family, which is technically known as the Night shade family, which is easily attacked by the types of fungi known professionally as Early blight and Late blight, and there is also the possibility that many disease germs can multiply in these structures and so to be difficult if not completely impossible to control them.
• To control this situation, it is good for farmers who use this situation to be advised to use crop rotation. This will prevent insects and diseases that attack crops or a particular crop family from breeding in the ground. But when a farmer decides to plant crops of a certain family for all seasons without changing pests and diseases, it becomes a big disaster because immediately after the second and third season of production, the guaranteed yield that was available throughout this initial period begins to decrease as the pests increase. and this leads to a complete fall in production, a situation that leads many farmers to demolish these structures. In anticipation of the possibility of such disasters occurring, that is why large companies involved in the construction of these structures prefer to provide advice and training to their customers.
• Using crop rotation, the crops recommended to be cultivated in these structures other than the night shade category (tomatoes, peppers, sweet peppers), are such as cucumbers, watermelons, passion fruit, broccoli, okra, wild potatoes, spinach, of pulses, garlic and so on.
• Good management includes the use of crop breeds that have resistance to insects and diseases as well as using biological pesticides such as neem, pareto and tephrosa and chemical pesticides such as Funco, Tebufarm, Safarm, Piricarb, and others.
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