Out of the Ashes

Henry and Jeff Huntington, owners of Pleasant View Gardens in Loudon, N.H., were planning to expand their production facilities -- just not this year. That situation changed Jan. 21 when a fire burned about three-fourths of a 1-acre greenhouse.

With the spring season approaching, the brothers decided to build a new structure at their Pembroke, N.H., location. They salvaged what they could of the damaged 25-year-old acrylic- and polyethylene-covered greenhouse in Loudon. About 15,000 square feet of the burned structure survived.

Henry Huntington said the new greenhouse is exceeding expectations.

“We’ve easily turned it 2½ times between April 1 and August 1,” Huntington said.

Burned but not broken
The damaged house had been used for plant propagation year-round. Huntington said the 10-foot-high gutter-connected house, which was equipped with expanded metal rolling benches, bottom heat, a mist system and concrete aisles, had served its purpose.

“It was an average 25-year-old propagation facility,” he said. “Its efficiency was low in terms of labor to move product in and out. Typically because of the low efficiency, we did a lot of our smaller volume crops in it. The house was fairly empty from Sept. 1 until Dec. 1.”

Huntington said part of the inefficiency came from propagating on benches.

“At one time we may have even considered pulling the benches out and pouring concrete and possibly installing flood floors,” he said. “We like growing on floors. It’s a really efficient way to move product in and out of the greenhouse. Having to carry trays two to four at a time is much more inefficient than bringing in a trolley or a cart right to where the product is located on the floor.”

Another thing that Huntington wanted to change was that the house was fan cooled.

“When you’re talking energy efficiency, it’s not always about heat,” he said. “When I would walk by the house in the summer and see all of the fans running in a half- or quarter-filled house, I was wondering, ‘how much electricity am I using in there?’”

Quick decision
Since it was the middle of winter, the Huntingtons had to decide whether they were going to rebuild immediately to get back the spring propagation that had been lost or wait until this summer to start construction.

“We decided that we really did need the space,” Huntington said. “We could have cut something out, but we really didn’t want to do that because the demand was there for the product.”

Time was a critical factor in making the decision to rebuild. The damaged greenhouse was right in the middle of the company’s Loudon location and limited the size of a replacement structure. The Loudon facility has 250,000 square feet of greenhouse production.

“We didn’t have any room to make it any bigger,” Huntington said. “It wasn’t in the configuration that we have been building — much wider bays and higher roofs.”

The Huntingtons had been talking about expanding their Pembroke location, but not until next year. Huntington said they had some idea of what they wanted in terms of additional production space and where the houses would be located.

“When we made the decision to expand our Pembroke facility it was really a no-brainer to just attach onto our existing Nexus range,” he said. “We knew that was going to be the easiest thing to do.”

Mimicking outdoor production
Prior to adding the new structures, the Pembroke facility had 4½ acres of covered production. The facility consisted of two greenhouse ranges that ran parallel to each other. The Huntingtons chose to add a 3-bay zone to each range, increasing production by 1½ acres. The 42-foot wide by 228-foot long houses had 14-foot high gutters and were to be naturally ventilated. “Where we were putting these new houses had been outdoor growing space,” Huntington said. “I wanted to mimic that outdoor production.”

The Huntingtons chose an open-roof house with a 5-foot vent on either side of the peak.

“At 42 feet wide we’re just opening the top to get as much air into the house as we possibly can,” Huntington said. “That’s the beauty of it—it’s outdoor space, but it’s protected so inclement weather won’t knock off the blossoms or do other damage.”

The new houses have been equipped with GTI irrigation booms, Argus environmental controls and a Trueleaf hot water in-floor and fin pipe heating system.

Because of time constraints, the new houses were completed in about two months, concrete aisles were poured and plants are being grown on gravel covered with weed mats.

“Our goal was to be able to move a crop into the new space by April 1, which we met,” Huntington said. In order to meet that deadline, we knew we wouldn’t be able to pour concrete flood floors. We will do that sometime in August or September. We did install irrigation booms in the new houses so we gain the efficiencies from them.”

The booms will remain in the new houses because they are being used for propagation.

“We have put in booms in all of our houses even with flood floors,” Huntington said. “They give us so much more flexibility in terms of our irrigation needs. We use the booms as much as we possibly can, including misting for propagation, full irrigation and fertigation, and for chemical applications of fungicides and growth regulators.”

Huntington said they will be refining the water technology for using flood floors with liners.

“We limit the use of the flood floors with our liner crops because of the concerns we have with disease issues that have not been resolved to our satisfaction,” he said. “Once that technology is available and we feel comfortable that it can be incorporated into our system, then we will consider irrigating the liners with the flood floors. Until then we will continue to use the booms.”

The Huntingtons continue to use the 15,000 square feet of greenhouse space that was not destroyed in the fire.

“We kept that smaller piece,” he said. “I don’t know what we will do with it in the future, but right now it’s a decent little growing house. It has a great environment for a small liner or finished crop. We can put the plants in it and run the environment they need. It’s worked real well for us.”

The new greenhouse was used for a summer crop of 6½-inch finished Proven Winners plants. The plants are usually started in the greenhouse and then moved outdoors allowing to save time, money, energy and labor.

“We were able to start the majority of that crop in the new space,” Huntington said. “This allowed us to shut down the old space sooner, turn off the fans and heaters and save more.” 


For more: Pleasant View Gardens, (603) 435-8361; www.pwpvg.com.