Lettuce.

A short cycle repeated all year, where the head is the unit sold

Lettuce is sold by the head, not by the kilogram, and that single fact reorganises the economics. Revenue follows the number of saleable heads a house produces in a year, so the design questions are cycle length, planting density and the share of heads that reach grade. A house that produces heavy heads slowly can earn less than one producing lighter heads on a shorter turn, which is the opposite of how a fruiting crop is judged.

The crop is short-cycle and hydroponic, and it is planted and cleared many times a year. That rhythm makes the system layout as important as the climate: the movement of plants through the house, the spacing changes as heads expand and the harvest and replant turnaround all set how many cycles a year the building can actually deliver. The climate envelope itself is narrow rather than demanding.

The commercial types divide by head form and leaf shape — butterhead, Batavia, crispy, oakleaf, incised, Lolla and romaine — and increasingly by cultivar within each type. A lettuce project is planned around a named cultivar because head mass, density tolerance and tipburn risk are cultivar properties rather than type properties. Romaine carries the highest tipburn risk of the family, because its upright head encloses the fastest-growing leaf margins where air moves least.

DutchGreenhouses® designs the structure, climate, screening and irrigation around the lettuce type, its system and the local climate, so the house turns cycles at the head quality the market grades on. Get in touch to plan a lettuce greenhouse.