Highlights

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Greenhouse

• Area dedicated to growing greenhouse products continued to expand settling just short of 230 million square feet.  Slightly more than half of the area was used for growing flowers and plants while the remaining 48% was dedicated for vegetables. Although the area distributions are similar, flower and plant sales make up 65% of the total greenhouse sales versus 35% from vegetables. Operators reported total sales of $2.34 billion in 2006 making it the best year ever.

Flowers and plants

• Growers reported $1.52 billion in sales of flowers and plants in 2006. The largest purchases of these products were wholesalers followed by the public. Potted plants had the highest sales with $679 million in revenue. The most popular potted plants were Geranium and Tropical varieties.

Vegetables

• Greenhouse vegetable growers indicated they sold a total of $826.9 million worth of product in 2006, the majority of which were sold to wholesalers. The vegetable that enjoyed the highest revenue was tomatoes followed by peppers and cucumbers. Tomatoes made up almost half of all vegetable revenue while peppers and cucumbers each had approximately one quarter of the total revenue. Tomatoes had the most area with 51.0 million square feet followed by cucumbers and peppers with 29.3 million square feet and 27.5 million square feet respectively.

Nursery

• Survey results indicate that Canada's total nursery area was 55,735 acres in 2006. Nursery sales in 2006 were $595.2 million. The largest buyers of nursery stock were landscapers and garden centers providing just over half of all revenues to nurseries.

Sod

• Total sod area continued to rise in 2006, reaching 58,945 acres. The increase in sod area is due to a higher demand for sod for golf courses, homes and parks. Along with the increase in area, growers experienced sod sales of $128.0 million.

Intercensal revisions

• On May 16, 2007, Statistics Canada released Census data that included area figures for greenhouse, nursery and sod operations. There are differences between The Annual Greenhouse, Sod and Nursery (GSN) figures and Census of Agriculture 2006 for various reasons. For example, although the GSN survey frame is updated on an ongoing basis, the Census of Agriculture often identifies operations that now have a greenhouse or nursery or sod as part of the operation. In addition, there are differences in the target populations of the GSN survey and the Census of Agriculture, which result in differences in the data. The GSN survey collects data from commercial operations and has a higher area cut-offs while the Census of Agriculture figures include area that does not meet the size requirements for the GSN survey population. In the coming year, intercensal revisions will be made to data points that suffered from undercoverage and non-response over the past five years. For this reason, direct comparisons between 2005 and 2006 should be made with caution. These revisions will be published in the next Greenhouse, Sod and Nursery Industries publication, to be released in April 2008.