You can use these for gourmet or specialty crops, or for organic farming. You even can put small fruit trees such as figs inside the structures. The structures are built by stretching plastic sheeting over a tubular frame. Three separate sheets of plastic form the roof and sidewalls of the tunnel.
Farmers can raise the sidewalls to ventilate the structure.
The endwalls are constructed so the one-piece section has a doorway, but it also is designed so that two people can lift the section and place support poles under it so that a tractor with attachments can be used inside. Orzolek, Lamont and other researchers currently are conducting growing trials for a variety of vegetables, including tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, spinach, lettuce, okra, ornamental gourds, cauliflower, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries and cut flowers. Commercial-size versions of high tunnels, which are 96 feet long, also protect plants from insects, diseases and wind damage, virtually eliminating field loss, which can run as high as 25 percent for some crops. High tunnels have been used in Europe and Japan for decades, but Lamont says Penn State has the largest high tunnel research program in the United States. In addition to the research tunnels, Penn State Cooperative Extension agents in eight counties operate demonstration high tunnels.