NURSERY

Nursery is a place where young seedlings are raised before taken to permanent site for plantation. However, Nursery is also a place where seeds of difference trees species are raised to reach the required size for planting.

There are two steps in nursery establishment;

1. Nursery design plan.
2. Nursery facilities establishment.

NURSERY SITE SELECTION

Nursery site was firstly determined for the purposed of seedling production. And the nature of site was not harmful to the desired plants species that was required to growth there. However, The site most fulfilled all the necessary required condition, such as temperature, water availability, and so on.

NURSERY SITE CLEARING

The located sites is cleared cleaned using special tools that are used for clearing such as ,hoes, rakes, cutlass, and standing sweeping broom. And All unwanted materials have  to be removed to make the site free from diseases.

TYPES OF NURSERY

Generally there are two types of nursery;
1. Temporary nursery
2. And permanent nursery

TEMPORARY NURSERY: Temporary nursery is the nursery where the seed is sown and watered regularly. Therefore, when it grow to the plantable size it will be transplanted to the permanent site.

PERMANENT NURSERY: This is the continues management operation of young plant that has been planted in the same spot.

NURSERY MANAGEMENTS

Nursery management involved the carrying of all nursery duties like site clearing, watering of potted mixture, control of weeds, selection of varieties and so on. Thus, all the above mentioned practices should be manage under nursery and plantation exercises in order to provide good and healthier seedling in the nursery field.

PROBLEMS OF NURSERY

MANAGEMENT: There are many problems associated with nursery management, they include the following;

1. Lack of good location or site
2. Lack of good road.
3. Lack of water availability.
4. Lack of technical known how.
5. Lack of good and viable seeds
6. Lack of availability of land.
7. Lack of capital.
8. Lack of nursery facilities.
9. Lack of mordents machineries

SOLUTION TO PROBLEMS OF NURSERY MANAGEMENT

The problems of nursery can be overcome when the farmer or gardener has made all the necessary preparation. And this can help him to run the exercises confidently. Therefore, the solution to such  problems are as follows;

1. choosing good location or site
2. Plan to construct a good road.
3. Provision of sources of water
5. The farmer or gardener must be skillful.
6. Seed to sawn must be viable to germinate when sawn.
7. Enough land for potted arrangement and plan design

NURSERY SIZES

This involve the target numbers of seedling the farmer want to produces for a particular place in a particular period of time.

NURSERY LAYOUT

A good nursery layout is the one designed in such a way that nursery operation are carried out easily.

METHODS OF SEEDS COLLECTIONS

The seeds can be collected in many ways depending on the availability of species. But some seeds are common in the society while other are not, the following are some common ways which seeds can be collected by the farmers.

1. Seed can be collected at the farm
2. Seed can be collected at road site
3. Seed can be collected from certified organization
4. Seed can be collected by the farm store

SEED TREATMENT

This is the way by which the farmer treat the seed  before sowing in the potted mixtures in order to prevent insect from destroying them. And seeds that are treated , are healthier and viable.

Seed treatment is accomplished by the following means:-

Scalding: this is soaking the seed in cool water for giving period.

Scarification: this is treating the seed in a hot water at a temperature.

Abrasion: this is the chemical treatment.

VIABILITY TEST

This is the test which is done in order to know how good the germination of the seeds is likely to be and this can be done by;

1. Water/hot water
2. Using chemical /acid soaking in
3. Using machine
All in order to know how good the seeds is

METHOD OF STORING SEEDS

1. Cold room
2. Refrigeration
3. Can
4. Sack / polythene begs
5. Air tight container.

CONTAINER SYSTEM

There are so many types of containers system. So, they can all be used to make nursery and plantation. But in this post, we can use polythene container which is black in color with length of 12cm and 5cm in diameter for a medium size polythene container.

TYPES OF CONTAINER

here are many types of container that can be used in nursery, mainly there are 3 major important types as follows;

1. Polythene containers.
2. Earthen containers.
3. Metal containers

CONTAINER FILLING

The container filling is the process by which the appropriate amount of sand is mixed with appropriate amount of manure into an empty container.

NURSERY BEDS

This is the organized potted mixture of sand where seeds are sown, the beds will be watered to become wetted for 2-5 days before sowing. It will be ready for sowing after 5 days.

SEEDS SOWING

after all the viable test and making ready wetted sand, the next operation is sowing which Is the actual placement of seeds into the soil and it was done in any of the following methods;

1. Broadcasting methods,
2. Drilling methods.
3. Dibbling methods.

WATERING

The farmer needs to water the seeds two times daily I.e in the morning and evening, every day until the seedling Rea h plantable size.

WEEDING OF WEEDS

This is the removal of undesirable unwanted germinated seedling that can come in to plants. They are removed from the desirable planted seedling in order to prevent competition between them and the seedlings for the spaces ,nutrients and so on.

PROTECTION AGAINST INSECTS

This is the control of insects from the surrounding of the nursery field. And This can also be achieved in two ways:

1. Chemical methods
2. Biological methods.

CHEMICAL METHODS: This is process of controlling insect pest by use of chemical means. The chemical is strong enough to kill the insect that are present in the nursery. And the chemical is measured using measuring devices ,that is the sprayer machine and spray on the impacted seedlings.

BIOLOGICAL MTHODS: This is Using the animals, predators of insect pest in the nursery field in order to control the insect. Therefore, such animals like lizards can feed on grasshoppers, and ant.

To read more on Crop production read here CROP PRODUCTION and to read on Agriculture in general read AGRICULTURE