Growth Spurts

In the six years since New York growers began adopting high tunnels — 20-by-100-foot unheated movable plastic structures that can cover 300 plants — tomatoes have been the most commercially successful.

In high tunnels, heat-loving tomato plants that can be trellised vertically and will bear continuously. A 25-pound box of U.S. #1 top-grade tomatoes sells for $40 to $50 wholesale, while field-grown tomatoes (with their unavoidable cracks and slight blemishes) may bring a grower only $5.

Chris Wien, Cornell University professor of horticulture and the leader of high tunnel research projects funded through the New York Farm Viability Institute, says he expects the use of high tunnels in New York to return a gain of $500,000 per year in the farm-gate value of the state’s horticultural crops by 2010.

Cornell extension specialists are assisting farmers across the state who want to adopt the technology. A half-dozen high tunnel vegetable research projects are currently under way on farms in several counties. These projects are funded by the New York Farm Viability Institute.

“We want to be sure that there’s a sustainable system in place by which high tunnel technology is easy to come by, and there’s a knowledgeable extension staff available to help,” says Wien, who has worked with growers producing diverse crops, including tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, cabbage and onions, using high tunnels up to 300 feet long.

Source: Cornell University

• Tomatoes
• Greenhouses
• The Hoophouse Handbook: Growing Produce and Flowers in Hoophouses and High Tunnels