Economic feasibility of grow bag based cucumber and capsicum cultivation under greenhouse

Soilless farming inside a protected structure is one of the promising technologies to produce nutritional food for an ever growing population and to increase water use efficiency where water is rare or unavailable. In order to increase the adoption of soilless cultivation inside greenhouses, economic analysis needs to be studied for growers’ budgetary planning. This study aimed to determine the costs and returns of capsicum and cucumber crops grown in soilless grow bag system with developed automatic fertigation controller inside the semi-climate greenhouse. And to develop a financial statement for small greenhouse growers. The economics of soilless cucumber and capsicum production in greenhouses was examined in this study. The yield and returns from the cucumber and capsicum grown in 500, 1000, and 2000 m² soilless greenhouses with developed controller were calculated. In a 2000 m² greenhouse, it was found that the net returns for cucumber and for capsicum were Rs. 480858.1/- and Rs. 691286.2/- respectively. Techno-economic feasibility was carried out with combinations of the crop under various sizes of greenhouses. Higher net present value, internal rate of return, B:C ratio (1.62–2.56) and lower payback period (less than two years) were obtained under the automated fertigation system in combinations of crops throughout the year under various sizes of greenhouse. Thus, investment in coco-peat grow bag based soilless cultivation with an automatic fertigation controller system was found to be profitable and economically feasible.