Techno-economic feasibility of Israeli and indigenously designed naturally ventilated greenhouses for year-round cucumber cultivation.

摘要

The production of greenhouse cucumber in many parts of the world parallels that of greenhouse tomatoes. Year-round slicing cucumber cultivation under natural greenhouses system can be a profitable venture for the vegetable growers in peri-urban areas of India. Increasing demand of high quality cucumber in big cities and particularly during off-season can fetch very high price of the produce in the markets. The economic feasibility of its cultivation entirely depends upon the basic cost of constructing greenhouses. Keeping this in view, trials were conducted at the Indo-Israel Project of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi under which two types of naturally ventilated greenhouses were evaluated for their techno-economic feasibility for year-round cucumber cultivation. The first type of naturally ventilated greenhouse was designed and fabricated by an Israeli company with a cost of US$ 40/m2 (Rs. 1800/m2) whereas the second type of naturally ventilated greenhouse was based on Indian design with fabrication cost of US$ 11/m2 (Rs. 500/m2). The first crop of parthenocarpic cucumber (var. Hasan) was planted in the first week of August, the second crop in the first week of October (var. Muhasan) and the third crop in the second week of February (var. Sarig) in both the greenhouses and their cost of production and cost-benefit ratio was calculated. The cost-benefit ratio of cucumber cultivation under the Israeli greenhouse system was worked out 1:1.13, whereas the cost-benefit ratio for the Indian greenhouse was 1:2.06 under Delhi conditions of India. It is concluded that the low cost naturally ventilated greenhouses are more suitable and economical for year-round cucumber cultivation in the northern plains of India..