Thanks for the input, greatly appreciated
I have not much experience growing any of the crops but my brother in law has grown a variety of the common Asian vegetables in a hydro setup before. However it did not have any protection of the elements and/or bugs.
Location
They are 4 seperate areas with different dimensions yes. I am restricted to this for testing purposes.
All is tiled and pretty close to horizontal. If I can grow reliable in there it will be expanded to land that we have to lease. I have to check for price/location/etc. But any design you recommend should be scalable. The most likely starting dimension will be a 100 m2 area but some part will be lost to (cool)storage/parking.
The protected area has to be built but will be kept simple in the testing environment. I have to check on material and costs, they are outside of the $5000 budget.
Materials
Some materials I will have to import from Thailand as they are readily available there. For example the aphid nets and black plastic to use for deep pond systems. Other things like foam cubes to start
seeds in, styrofoam boards, plastic buckets/rainwater storage tanks, wood, concrete, etc are available in here. Prices: I have to check. Just include what you would use at home and I check if it is available, at what cost and if I might can substitute it with something cheaper.
Production
When I grow for commercial use I plan to do round year production of the same crop. I have to research the market to see if it is profitable though but it takes time to gather this data. If however I choose to switching with seasons I would keep in mind to stack plants together that require similar cooling or lighting.
nutrient/PH Control
I will check what both cost in dry form. Both can be imported from Thailand. However at a later stage it is more cost effective to make my own nutrient mix I think. Since there is no supplier here yet it also could give the opportunity to sell it. It has a steep learing curve though
I have seen a member on this board who is doing it in Thailand.
Temp/Humidity
I will try to research more into the types of structures that are in use over here and how this affects humidity and temperature. On the following website (pls add www in front, the url did mess up my post) I found they are using Evaporative Cooling. Although some websites did suggest it would not work in the climate I live in. Any idea if it is a good investment? ackhydrofarm.com/eng_home.php
I will take a tour at this farm later on maybe.