Building Apex Greenhouse’s largest structure to date

The Goodness Grown team at Tongala in northern Victoria wanted to grow happy tomato plants, and to do so, they asked us, Apex Greenhouses, to build a commercial glasshouse that would fit the bill.

But it couldn’t be just any old greenhouse. It needed to be 200,000 sqm – which is about the size of 10 Melbourne Cricket Grounds. That’s a lot of happy tomatoes to grow. It also needed to be divided into four blocks, customised, featuring a trellis post design from our partners at Prins Greenhouses, and with frameless windows, with diffused glass and AR coating. Posts needed to be 7m high, to ensure maximum diffused lighting could produce optimum growing conditions for future tomato crops.

We wanted to build the best greenhouse in Australia – as is our goal with every commercial greenhouse construction we undertake – and there were several environmental considerations we needed to take into account during the construction phase.

The climate at Tongala is ideal for high-tech greenhouse production, within one of Australia’s largest dairy regions. The dairy industry provides a steady supply of organic waste for future bioenergy production, which will one day be used within this industrially-sized greenhouse to reduce carbon emissions or turn them into food. It’s farm tech at its best.

It’s hot in northern Victoria, which is great for growing particular crops. We knew this Venlo design style of glasshouse would work well in hot, arid climates such as this one.

We built the Goodness Grown greenhouse over a particularly hot summer, with temperatures outside regularly above 40 degrees. While we were waiting for power to be connected to our vents, temperatures inside the greenhouse could push above 60 degrees during the hottest part of the day.

To manage working during such intense temperatures, and to ensure we could still get the four structures built, our team opted to work regular night shifts. That required significant lighting, but then that brought out the sandflies and mosquitoes! Big credit must go to our building team during those trying times – they were still able to deliver the project well ahead of schedule. By world standards, from foundations to completion, it was impressive for our team of up to 20 men at times to finish the project within nine months. We were able to deliver in extreme conditions and under a tight time frame.

The Tongala project was also our largest combined structure to date. While Apex Greenhouses has built greenhouses larger than 5ha, this is the first time we’ve built structures of this magnitude in one construction project, with four separate, hi-tech, climate-controlled greenhouses.

To build such a significant structure, there were also logistical considerations. There were close to 400 shipping containers worth of building materials coming and going, so having them delivered, emptied and off-hired in relatively short windows kept things interesting. We also worked with other teams under main contractor Irribiz, which delivered the electrical works, irrigation and packing equipment.

Our finished product is now a clean and controlled growing environment which features the latest biosecurity measures, including strict hygiene protocols, controlled access points, and advanced pest and disease risk mitigation strategies with an emphasis on biological controls. This ensures tomatoes are growing in a safe environment where use of pesticides and fungicides is minimized, ensuring safer, more sustainable crop management. It’s protective cropping at its best.

Since our custom greenhouse opened there have been very few issues. However, we encountered a new and unique dilemma quite quickly… pesky Cockatoos were flying onto the roof and chewing away some of our PVC components! To counter the squawkers, Goodness Grown installed intermittent “boom” cannons to fire intermittently, doing the trick. Even after almost 20 years in the greenhouse building industry, that was a new challenge and a completely unique one for us.

Goodness Grown can now produce fresh produce all year round, and we’ve allowed them to take the uncontrollable factors out of farming to ensure they can grow consistent, high-quality, flavoursome and healthy produce in an efficient and environmentally sustainable way, without being subjected to the vagaries of climate and weather.

A landmark facility such as this is a boon for this region. Goodness Grown has been able to realise a greenfield development, create more skilled jobs, support other local businesses and strengthen the agricultural economy in Victoria, in one of the most sophisticated, and dare we say it, best greenhouses in Australia. We wish them a lot of success with the new facility!

To learn more about this great project, contact our expert team today.