Soil Preparation for Nursery
Table of Contents
SOIL PREPARATION FOR NURSERY BED:
The soil of nursery bed should have the following characteristics.
- It should be light
- It should be cohesive _ sticking, holding, or working together as a united whole
- It should have enough organic contents
- It should be fertile
It the soil has such characteristics; it can be used for seed sowing.
Soil preparation involves the following steps:
Ploughing/Plowing:
After selection of soil, it is plowed with the help of tractors or buffaloes. It will loosen the soil.
Discing:
The plowed or tilled soil is then properly discited.
Manuring:
Discing and plowing are done before seed sowing and then from yard manure or animal dung is added in it in order to increase the fertility and water holding a capacity of the soil. Then seed sowing is done.
Image: Fogg’s Nursery & Mulch Supply
MAINTAINANCE OF FERTILITY:
If appropriate steps are not taken for the maintenance of fertility in the soil, the crop percentage may fall.
Following steps are taken to improve fertility.
Fallowing:
Every year some areas of the nursery are kept on rest. This rotates in the whole nursery but it is not a good method.
Manuring:
In temperate forests, leaf molds are used as organic manures. In planes, large pits are filled with leaves. Cattle manures are more satisfactory than horse dung.
Composing:
Composite or artificial farmyard manure is obtained from vegetable wastes from clearing fire lines.
Green manures:
An alternative method is to raise a suitable crop and turn it into a soil as green manure leguminous crops are preferred.
Mineral fertilizers:
Organic fertilizers are added in the soil to make it more fertile.
Fencing:
Fencing may of the following types:
- Live fencing _ hedge of thorny spp like Prosopis juliflora
- Brushwood fencing _ used esp for roadsides or canal sides of spp like Zizyphus spp or Acacia spp
- Stonewall _ drywall of about 4ft is effective against horned cattle
- Trenches _ it can be effective protection at lower cost usu of 4 ft depth.
- Strand wire fencing _ poles at corners at 12 ft; in between barbed wires at a 4ft distance
- Wove wire fencing _ to strengthen the Strand wire fencing, diagonal bared wires are used to make a cross like shape from above of the top of the first pole to the bottom to the other.
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Read More in Details about Nursery Raising Here:
Contents
- Introduction
- Forest Nursery
- The Need for Forest Nursery Raising
- Key task of Nursery Management
- Types and Classification of Nurseries
- Factors Determining Nursery Stock Production Success
- Development of a Site for Nursery Raising
- Cultural and Tending Operations
- Storage of the Nursery Stock
- Transport of Nursery Stock
