Ing Forestal

Nursery of containers

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Natali cruz mencia

Silviculture essay

Profesor: kupka

28/3/2011

Introduction

The container nursery involves the production of ornamental trees and shrubs, fruit trees, and perennial flowers grown in above-ground containers. The question is what factors do we have to consider for creating a tree nursery of containers? as a nursery manager,enviromental concerns are very important, The challenge was to find materials that could contain the soil and plants as they moved through the production system the replacement of the plastic products, the materials use to make them,we have to decide whether to operate a bareroot nursery or a container nursery, and our decision depends mainly on the species and the environment that they develop,Economic considerations, marketing also play an important role.
For starting a nursery of containers we have to be able to know the basic concepts of what we are discussing here.

Some terminology is Essentials to understand how the nursery of containers work, we need to know what is seedling,we should know that is the plant that have being grown from a seed, but the most important thing from thisterm is often used loosely to refer to many types of nursery stock including transplants, rooted cuttings, and emblings (which are produced through micropropagation), then we have the Stock type: Forest and conservation seedlings, are traditionally divided into two basic stock types:
bareroot seedlings and container seedlings,that describe how they were grown.

Bareroot stock :is typicallygrown in native soil in open fields and the seedling is removed from the soil during harvesting.

Container seedlings: how we know are grown in artificial growing media in a controlled environment, such as a greenhouse, were growth limiting factors can be manipulated, because the volume of growing medium is relatively small, the roots bind the medium into a cohesive plug by the time they areharvested Although the seedlings are also called "containerized," or "plug" seedlings, we prefer the term container seedling because it is simple and definitive.

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Bareroot seedlings are grown in outdoor nursery
beds in native soil and are subject to local weather conditions
After harvesting, they are stored and shipped for outplanting
without soil around the root systém
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Types ofcontainers

Advantages and disadvantages

Containers for plant propagation come in various forms, sizes, and in different materials, polystyrene, polyethylene, fibre or paper. New forms and materials are constantly being developed and tested, The type of container selected depends on the plants to be raised, their purpose and size.

Polybags: are the containers most commonly used in treenurseries indeveloping countries. They are usually made of black polyethylene and have several drainage holes at the bottom (if they don’t, holes can be made using apaper punch). A common problem with polybags is that plant roots tend to grow in spirals once they hit the smooth inner surface. This will inevitably lead to plants with restricted growth, poor resistance to stress and wind-throw and evenearly dieback due to root masses or pathogens.

Polysleeves:made from the same material are cut from a continuous roll and have no bottom. Both types are often locally made andtherefore cheap. they are less resilient in transport,because the potting substrate can easily fall out and damage the roots.

The discarded polybags and polysleeves are a problem for nursery waste management, as they donot decay and are often burned, producing serious air pollution.

Jiffy pots: are made from compressed peat and need to be filled with a growth substrate. Roots can easily penetrate the container walls, so root curling does not occur. The seedling is planted together with the pot which is biodegradable, so ithink using this is better because is doesn‘t cause pollution. Like the other mentioned...