CA22090 - PMA: Buildings & structures: Glasshouses

Most glasshouses are not plant or machinery. They are buildings or structures and so are excluded from plant or machinery allowances CA22010. In the case of Grays v Seymours Garden Centre (Horticulture) 67TC401 a planteria, which was effectively an unheated glasshouse, was held not to be plant.

Accept that a glasshouse and its attendant machinery are inter-dependent and form a single entity which functions as plant in a grower's business if the following conditions are satisfied:

1. The structure and the equipment were designed as one unit to operate as a single entity.
2. It incorporates extensive computer controlled equipment, without which the structure cannot operate to achieve the optimum artificial growing environment for the particular crops involved.
3. The equipment was permanently installed during the construction of the glasshouse.
4. The equipment includes computer systems which control:

• boiler and piped heating systems,
• temperature and humidity controls,
• automatic ventilation equipment,
• automatic thermal screens or shade screens.

Depending on the crops grown, the equipment may include:

• equipment for carbon dioxide enrichment of the glasshouse atmosphere (for example for tomatoes or cucumbers),
• hydroponic culture (for tomatoes and capsicums),
• mobile benching or transport tables (for pot plant production),
• lighting to control day length or to supplement natural light (for pot and cut chrysanthemums and plant propagators).

A glasshouse that qualifies as plant is likely to be used for year round growing of high value crops. Without the benefit of a closely controlled environment there would be a limited growing season around the summer season.