Good tree nursery practices: practical guidelines for research nurseries

Trees are central to our lives. We eat food and fruits from trees, we use paper made from woodpulp, tools with wooden handles, and medicine extracted from tree bark. We and our animals rest in theirshade and we breathe their air: one large tree produces enough oxygen daily to supply a family of four.Trees are an integral part of agricultural landscapes and are playing increasingly important roles in in-come provision for rural households.Many of the species that are coming onto the market out of tree domestication programmes arenew — they have grown in the forests but nobody has raised them in a nursery before. However, all toooften, nurseries operate with minimal inputs and outdated techniques, and produce poor seedlings. Disap-pointment about slow development or even seedling death is common, and many farmers have lost inter-est in tree planting out of frustration over bad planting material. If the tree nurseries fail to produce high-quality seedlings, deforestation and loss of valuable genetic resources will continue and will devastate ourlandscapes. We have a lot to learn about the requirements of these species and about their functions inagricultural systems. This is why we do agroforestry research.Good and meaningful research depends on quality inputs and reproducible methods. That is whatthis book is about. It gives guidelines for uniformly high-quality seedling production. Althoughundomesticated germplasm often has a high variability, nursery managers have to guarantee that seed-lings are produced under uniform and optimal conditions. Only then can a researcher attribute the vari-ability clearly to the genetic differences of the seed. Only if healthy rootstock is produced, can successfulgrafting experiments be carried out. And only when we know the full potential of a new species or prov-enance, can we start assessing how well it might develop under adverse conditions.Tree nurseries attached to research or plantation programmes differ in one important aspect fromsmall-scale rural nurseries: they have — or ought to have — more resources, so that initial costs forinvestments are not as critical as they are for many rural nurseries. Therefore, keeping high quality stand-ards can and should become the leading principle. These nurseries can demonstrate the beneficial effectsof such investments to farmers. Structured planning and quality control, appropriate substrates and con-tainers, nursery hygiene and good equipment — all necessary in good nursery operation — are discussedin this manual.Not all of the suggestions presented here will fit a particular location. Every nursery has its ownindividual environment which requires special equipment to produce healthy seedlings. Every nurseryhas a unique target — planting sites, climate or clients which require special seedling quality standardsand standard nursery practices. For different species, different nursery strategies are needed. This bookprovides information so that such strategies can be developed through simple experimentation. It is writ-ten primarily for nursery managers who are keen to improve an existing nursery by using good nurserypractices for quality tree seedling production.

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