The primary goal for any greenhouse operator is to reduce energy costs per dollar value of crop produced, may it be vegetables, bedding plants, ornamentals, tree seedlings, strawberries or cannabis. Increasing crop yields and quality is another way ofreducing energy costs. To emphasize the point of higher yields, the following table correlates gross margins sensitivity analysis of cucumber production and price of natural gas.Table 1 shows that if the production of cucumbers is 80 fruit/plant then your dollars per sq.foot net revenue would be in negative at a gas price of $ 5.50/GJ. The figures were prepared at a certain price level and the actual numbers will change with the price of cucumbers.In order to go to a positive revenue at $ 9.50/GJ of gas price, one has to produce 100 cucumbers.The point is that in order to offset higher heating costs or other input costs, prepare a sensitivity table like this and know how many cucumbers need to be produced to pay for increases.
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