Nursery Notes part 4

 Planning Process:

4.1 Irrigation Infrastructure 

4.1.1 Depending upon the production components of an integrated nursery units which comprises of mother plant garden, rootstock nurseries, poly tunnels, mist chambers, etc., different types of irrigation systems are required to be designed and installed. 

These include : 

a. Drip irrigation system for Mother Plants; 

b. Manual watering with rose cans or micro sprinklers for root stock nursery beds and shade net areas; 

c. Micro sprinkler for poly tunnels for vegetable nursery production where envisaged; 

d. Water storage tank (masonry structure or HDPE tanks of 10000 L capacity) 

e. A well laid out pipe line distribution system across the nursery unit to meet the above requirements. 

4.2 Propagation Structures: 

Propagation structures are necessary for ensuring better root growth, bud/graft union, hardening and higher success rate in plant multiplication. The specific requirements of plant growing structures vary for different types of nurseries. For multiplication of perennial horticultural crops as envisaged under the model scheme, the following structures are considered necessary. 

4.2.a. Mist Chambers 

Mist chambers provide a humid and cool micro environment that is necessary for propagation of soft wood cuttings, hard to root species. The requirement of mist chamber for perennial fruit crops nursery depends upon the species/varieties to be propagated. A mist chamber of 15 to 20 sq m area is considered adequate for the nursery model envisaged. 

4.2.b. Poly house 

In a poly house, temperature, light and humidity are maintained at optimum conditions required for quick growth and development of grafted/budded plants. This would help in higher success rate of multiplication with better and healthy nursery plants. A poly house to stock around 10,000 rooted /budded / grafted nursery plants (1/3 of envisaged production) at any given point of time is required for which, a 200 sq m poly house area (naturally ventilated of suitable dimensions) is provided for. Vacant space available in the poly house for shorter / intervening periods of about 3 to 4 weeks can be effectively utilized for commercial production of nursery for short duration/annual crops like vegetables and flowers in protrays.

4.2.c. Shade net area

Shade net area provides necessary microclimate for acclamization and hardening of layered/budded / grafted plants and offer protection from direct sunlight, heavy rainfall and heat waves/dry winds. Shade house would also facilitate raising of seedlings in bags directly where necessary. Considering the envisaged capacity of the nursery, a she net area of 500 sq.meters (to house 10000 grafts at any given point of time) is considered adequate. Like in polyhouse, vacant space available under the shade net area for shorter / intervening periods of about 3 to 4 weeks can be effectively utilized for commercial production of nursery for short duration/annual crops like vegetables and flowers in portrays or under poly-tunnels.

4.3 Mother plants garden

4.3.1 Production of true to type good quality planting material is the basic objective of a commercial nursery unit. To ensure the same, it is necessary that the bud wood/ scion material is sourced from “true to variety” mother plants. Since the timely availability and regular supply of scion material is necessary, an exclusive mother plants garden is maintained as part of commercial nursery unit, where different perennial horticulture crops and their varieties in demand are grown in separate plots variety wise. Important criteria for selection of mother plants include genetic purity (true to type / variety), vigorous, healthy and high yielding. They should be free from pests, diseases and viruses. It is important that these mother plants are sourced from reliable / authentic sources like government nurseries or from research stations or from registered nurseries of repute. Since the purpose of mother plant garden is to ensure more of graftable shoots / scions, high density planting at a spacing of 2mX2m is maintained. This would also facilitate grafting operation where approach grafting/ air layering are involved.

4.3.2 Under the model project establishing an exclusive mother plant garden with 1500 mother plants of different crops and varieties is provided. The demand for varieties is highly region specific and the nursery units are required to select such varieties for propagation depending upon the targeted regions for marketing and the varietal preference in for those regions. An area of 6000 sq m (1.5 acres) would be necessary for establishing the mother plant garden in well laid-out plots with variety wise demarcation. This would ensure production of around 30000 saleable grafts per year from 4 the year of operations.

4.4 Nursery and Rootstock Seed Beds

Nursery beds are required for raising rootstock seedlings especially in crops where propagation by budding / grafting is involved. The rootstock material is raised directly in nursery beds or in polybags in a well laid out plots of 1.25 meter width and of any convenient length. A working area of 60cm between the beds is necessary for undertaking sowing,intercultural operations (weeding, watering, plant protection, etc.) and uprooting of rootstock plants.

4.5 Pot mixture preparation and potting yard

Preparation of potting mixture and potting are important activities for which adequate space is necessary for keeping of inputs (soil, leaf mold, manure, pots, etc). For better growth and establishment of nursery plants after grafting operations, a good potting mixture is necessary.

The potting mixtures is prepared by mixing fertile red soil with well decomposed FYM and leaf mold, and sand in 2:1:1 proportion which is utilized for filling of pots / polybags. An area of 30 to 50 sq m is demarcated for potting operations. Structures for Nursery

4.6 Tools and Implements

Nursery operations require special tools like budding/grafting knives, and implements including sprayers and equipment like wheel barrows for movement of inputs/potted plants within the nursery area. Adequate financial provision is made to meet these requirements.

4.7 Fencing

The nursery area is required to be adequately protected from stray cattle and tress-passing with proper fencing. Considering the total area required which approximately works out to about 7500 sq m area (about 2 acres), fencing covering a length of 450 running meters is provided in the model scheme

4.8 Maintenance / Operational requirements

The operational expenses upto three years of establishing and maintaining the nursery unit are capitalized considering the following factors.

 The proposed model scheme involves establishment of mother plant garden. Being perennial crops, it would be necessary for the plants to attain adequate growth before taking up budding/layering/grafting operations/harvesting of shoots for scion material. The graftable scions will be available from second year planting and optimum number of around 25 graftable scions from 4 th year.

 Rootstock production operations (for production of grafts) are required to be commenced from second year onwards to synchronize with availability of scion material.

 Considering the time taken for grafting, hardening and curing, the saleable grafts will be available only from the third year of commencing the nursery unit. The income from sale of grafts will be realized only from the third year and stabilized income from 5 th year.