Economic Potential of Using High Tunnel Hoop Houses to Produce Fruits and Vegetables

Abstract Hoop house plasticulture has been promoted as a production technology that allows fruit and vegetable crops to be grown in the cool season months in early spring and late fall. At this time little information regarding the economics of hoop house plasticulture is available. Two fruit and vegetable production systems were developed for growing conditions in south-central Oklahoma. The first system has a spinach crop followed by field tomato, and the second system has annually produced strawberry followed by yellow and zucchini squash. Crop production data were collected in a three-year randomized and replicated experiment. The objectives were (1) to determine the expected cost of production for each crop and systems, (2) to determine the breakeven price for each crop in each system, and (3) to determine how robust breakeven prices are to a number of yield, expense and marketing scenarios. The expected total cost of production were $1,968 and $1,652 per house for spinach and tomato crops, respectively, and $2,749, $359 and $353 per house for yellow and zucchini squash crops, respectively. Breakeven prices for spinach and tomato were $3.32 and $0.83 per pound, respectively, and $6.16, $0.92, and $1.40 per pound for strawberry and yellow and zucchini squash, respectively. Breakeven prices for spinach and strawberry crops were most sensitive to assumptions about quantity of marketable yield sold and/or quantity of yield consumed by grower household.