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NewsGalvan 2002 News Releases:
Metrolina Greenhouse - Galvan uses the hot dip process on nation's largest hot house Beauty is big business at Metrolina Greenhouses, Inc. in Huntersville, NC, the nation's largest greenhouse under one roof and possibly the world's most automated. Under glass and plastic, about 400 workers tend 92 heated acres, producing 70 million plants a year. Spring bedding plants such as impatients give way to summer annuals, followed by the pansies and poinsettias of fall and winter. Metrolina sows, prunes and packs plants bound for 900 retailers, including Lowe's, Home Depot, Wal-Mart and myriad independent sellers. Tom VanWingerden started the company in 1972, and his two daughters and four sons now work in the business. As big as it is, Metrolina is part of something even bigger: Greenhouse- and nursery-grown flowers, ornamentals, turf and trees surpassed tobacco in 1999 as the state's biggest cash crop. Last year, sales topped $1billion, nearly double those of tobacco. The secret behind its success? Demand for plants in the booming suburbs and a higher return on their cropland for farmers. A greenhouse can gross $180,000 a year per acre - 40 times what tobacco brings. "We are urban agriculture," says Debbie Hamrick, president of the North Carolina Commercial Flower Growers Association. "We are urban society's connection to nature." Galvanizing Home Page • Electrical Products Home Page • Site Map • Email Galvan Galvan Industries, Inc. • PO Box 369 • 7320 Millbrook Rd Harrisburg, North Carolina 28075 • 704.455.5102 • Fax: 704.455.5215 Toll Free: 1.800.277.5678 |
