Protected soil or substrate
Consider where the product, climate and local operating skills support a simpler crop system.
Limit: Rain protection alone does not solve heat, hygiene, traceability or cooling.
Illustrative project scenario · Lettuce and leafy greens
Leafy Greens Greenhouse Project Scenario
A project-level example of how lettuce format, batch rhythm, water hygiene, cooling and staff workflow shape a leafy-greens greenhouse.
Discuss your projectScenario status
A planning example, not a delivered client case.
This scenario combines general greenhouse design and operating lessons. It is not a real DutchAgriTech installation. No client, location, area, yield, savings or sales result is claimed. Actual recommendations require a verified site, crop, buyer and project scope.
Starting situation
The commercial question comes first.
Imagine a food distributor seeking a dependable local supply of lettuce. It has not yet decided between whole heads, cut leaves and living plants. Those are different products with different harvest, cleaning, packing and shelf-life demands. Starting with an advertised hydroponic area would hide the most important commercial decision.
Choose the product format and weekly order profile first. Whole heads may support a repeatable batch schedule; cut leaves add more handling and food-safety interfaces; living plants change packaging and retail presentation. Compare a protected soil or substrate route with a hydroponic route only after checking water quality, heat exposure, sanitation duties and the people available to run the system.
- Crop
- Lettuce and leafy greens
- Decision
- Match production route to buyer, site and operator.
- Output
- A verifiable production brief and comparable scope options.
Hydroponic channels or rafts
Consider where uniform root-zone delivery and a controlled batch process have real value.
Limit: Treatment, filtration, circulation, cleaning, backup power and monitoring become core operations.
Staged crop mix
Prove one sale format and delivery rhythm before adding more varieties or a continuous schedule.
Limit: Multiple crops can multiply sanitation and scheduling complexity.
System decision
Water and hygiene
Test source water and document filtration, treatment, cleaning, monitoring and corrective action. Separate clean plant material and tools from waste and returns. The system design must allow access for inspection and maintenance without disrupting every production lane.
System decision
Climate and batch rhythm
Check the hottest weeks for air and root-zone temperature, shading, ventilation and crop variety. Reserve time for cleaning between batches and model supply shortfalls rather than assuming every bay is always in production.
System decision
Packing and cold chain
Set the acceptable interval between harvest and cooling, product temperature, pack format and delivery window from the buyer brief. A greenhouse output figure is commercially irrelevant if the product cannot arrive with the required shelf life.
Project sequence
What happens before a budget becomes useful?
The order matters: each decision narrows the next one. Keep unknowns visible rather than turning them into a precise-looking price or production claim.
- Specify product format, pack and recurring orders.
- Test climate and source water, especially in warm periods.
- Choose growing route and sanitation protocol together.
- Size harvest, cooling and dispatch for peak day.
- Train operators and rehearse pump or cooling failure.
Evidence and downside
Test what could invalidate the plan.
If water treatment or cooling cannot be maintained reliably, reduce the promised weekly volume or choose a simpler product format. If demand is intermittent, a continuous production line can create unsold, short-life crop.
The project should leave the first review with a product definition, batch calendar, hygiene plan and a scope for water, greenhouse and post-harvest systems. Yield and price are not transferable from another lettuce facility.
- 01
- Buyer format, shelf-life and traceability requirements
- 02
- Weekly demand and delivery windows
- 03
- Water analysis and sanitation plan
- 04
- Warm-season climate evidence
- 05
- Staffing, cooling and logistics capacity
Continue from this example
Replace the scenario with your own project facts.
Read the crop guide and relevant system information, then collect the six inputs in our project checklist. A project-specific quotation follows only after site and responsibility boundaries are defined.