Sowing, Cultural Practices and Seed Treatment for Bare Rooted and Containerized Seedlings
Sowing, Cultural Practices and Seed Treatment for Bare Rooted and Containerized Seedlings
Type of planting stock to be raised the nursery technique to be adopted is determined the type of planting stock to be produced to suit specific site conditions the planting stock used for raising plantations in the field, along roads, canal banks and railway lines consist generally of container grown plants, nursery raised plants planted out with balls of earth’s and banked root plants. This technique is generally used in temperate regions for species like walnut, pine, poplar, etc. of these, the container grown plants are currently most commonly used as they perform better in establishment than others.
A) Raising Seedlings on Beds:
a) Raised Bed: In some regions particularly heavy rainfall area, raised beds are prepared for preparing raise beds. Soil is ploughed twice or thrice cross wise and bringing it to fine tilth. The height of bed should be 15cm. It should have dimension 1.8 into 10m, 20-30 Kg decomposed FYM or cow dung per bed and small quantity of carbaryl powder is applied. Then raised bed is prepared across slope.
b) Sunken Bed: In dry and grid region sunken beds are prepared. It helps in pounding water. These beds should be drained.
c) Flat Beds: These are prepared in and zone, well drained soil is required. In this method, soil is prepared as in raised bed method. FYM and carbaryl powder are mixed in soil. Levelling is done for uniform irrigation. The dimension of beds may vary depending upon slope, number of seedlings to be raised, spacing etc. (1.2 x 10 to 12 m). In water logging condition this method is not applicable. It is usually followed in and region to conserve the soil moisture for long period sowing. As far as possible, fresh seeds should be sown to obtain early and better germination.
Pre Sowing Seed Treatments:
The seeds are given the seed treatment before sowing them in the nursery beds. These treatments in most of the seeds include five minutes deeping in hot water and allow to cool at 48 hrs. For e.g. Australian Babul, Black and white Shirish, Apta, Aonla, Amaltas, Kashid etc. In some seeds the cold treatment at low temperature of 1 to 2°C is given for 2-3 months which is called as Stratification. It is followed in Walnut, Pear, and Cherry etc. The seeds having hard seed coat are mechanically ruptured by breaking the seed coat for permeability of water and good germination for is called Scarification. For Seeds, the dilute or strong acid / alkali treatment is given. E.g. Teak wood, Ber. Some seeds like Mulbery soaked in Kerosene which acts as repelling action on insects and paste.