A Review of Plastic Greenhouses: The Problems, Progress, and Possibilities

Abstract Over two centuries ago Jonathan Swift wrote “necessity is the mother of invention.” Because the late Professor Emery Myers Emmert could not afford an expensive glass greenhouse, he invented the plastic greenhouse in 1948. It was covered with 4’ × 4’ wooden frames with supporting form wire (spaced every 6 inches) on which cellophane film was attached. These frames were nailed on the rafters of narrow wooden structures and lapped similarly to greenhouse glass. Remarkable as it now seems, he grew commercial crops of lettuce, tomatoes, and bedding plants in these houses for several years before the era of polyethylene.