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Download the Growing Fruit Tree Seedlings Chapter
The Growing Fruit Tree Seedlings chapter of the Facilitators Manual provides the detailed instructions (and support materials) you need to implement the mobilization meeting. Download the chapter here.
Summary
Goal Farmers will use appropriate nursery techniques to cultivate fruit seedlings for planting in their Forest Gardens. Objectives- Learn how to prepare various fruit tree seeds for planting.
- Learn fruit tree nursery establishment and seedling propagation techniques.
- Learn fruit tree nursery management best practices.
- Chapter 4: Seeds
- Chapter 5: Seedling Propagation
- Chapter 6: Fruit Trees (Rearing Fruit Seedlings section)
- Chapter 11: Pruning, Harvesting, and Tree Management
- Identify a nursery site (on the lead farmer’s or a participant farmer’s land) where the training will take place and inspect the site to make sure it is protected with a fence or otherwise safe from animals. The host farmer can use the agroforestry tree nursery site, if there were no problems with that location.
- Ensure that the site also has trees in green wall and alleys that are ready to be pruned and harvested.
- Select locally available fruit species, at least one to use as rootstock for grafting and at least one that does not need to be grafted, in addition to the species the group agreed to plant in Module 5.
- Decide which tree nursery (bareroot bedding, tree sacks) and seed pretreatment techniques (e.g. soak, scarify and soak, boil and soak, etc.) need to be covered with the group based on the fruit species selected.
- Ask the host farmer to prepare 5 fruit seedling sacks with multiple seedlings in each pot. These should be started about 4 to 6 weeks before the training event, depending on the species. The seedlings should be about 5 to 10 cm tall.
- Prepare seeds for planting if pretreatment requires overnight soaking or another process that cannot be completed during the workshop.
- ½ wheelbarrow of wood ash
- ½ wheelbarrow of charcoal ash
- Screen material for sifting potting soil
- 5 sharpened, clean knives or pruning sheers
- 3 wheelbarrows of sand or topsoil
- 2 wheelbarrows of compost or decomposed manure
- 15 tree sacks per participant (5 for the activity, 10 for the assignment)
- 5 spade shovels
- 3 watering cans
- 1 wheelbarrow of Azadiractha indica (neem) or Eucalyptus sp. leaves (where available)
- Ripe fruits of selected species for extracting seeds (a few per participant)
- 5 tree sacks with several germinated trees (~10 cm tall)
- 50 liters for watering seedlings
- String
- Any materials needed for pretreatment of selected species
- Pruning Correctly
- Fruit Tree Nursery
Agenda
Opener: Fruit tree nursery discussion (1 hour)- Nursery siting
- Seed quality
- Germination beds
- Tree sack and bareroot nurseries
- Direct seeding and cuttings
- Protecting the nurseries
- Form small groups
- Build nursery sites appropriate for the seeds selected
- Demonstrate how to extract seed from a fruit
- Why pretreat seeds
- Demonstrate pretreatment method for selected fruit trees
- Practice seed extracting and pretreatment methods
- Demonstrate how to extract and pretreat selected fruit tree seeds
- Practice seed extraction and pretreatment methods
- Farmer demonstrates how to sow
- Farmers practice sowing
- Review best practices in nursery management
- Demonstrate thinning
- Instructions for Farmers
- Follow-up
What you need to know
Whether you intend to sit the FG Pro certification exam, or lead Seedling Propagation module extension activities, you must be able to answer the following questions to succeed.Seeds: quality, collection, extraction & storage
Seed quality
- Why is seed quality important?
- How can you tell if a seed is likely to be good?
- What are characteristics of parent trees that are good for seed?
- How can you increase genetic diversity in your stored seeds? Should you harvest seed from fruits that come from the same tree? Should they be from trees that are near each other? Why or why not?
- What are desired parent characteristics for seeds of different products?
- Why do you use local varieties of fruit for seed?
Seed Collection
Seed Extraction & Drying
Seed Storage
Soil types, amendments, compost & mulch
Soil Type
- Why is soil quality important?
- What are the different types of soil?
- What are the drawbacks of clay for nursing trees?
- What are the drawbacks of sand for nursing trees?
- Why is loamy soil best for nursing trees? What is the fourth important medium for healthy soils? What is humus and where does it come from?
Simple Soil Test
Soil Amendments and their Benefits
Building your nursery, planting seeds, and seedling care
Selecting the Nursery Site
Tools, Nursery Bed Size and Working Space, and Building a Shade Structure
- Depending on the nursery method – how many seedlings can you raise per square meter of space?
- In addition to nursery beds, what all should you incorporate in your nursery layout?
- What is a good width for a nursery bed? What is the ideal length of a nursery bed? Why do you need to leave space between nursery rows, how much?
- What tools do you need to establish your nursery?
- How do you build a shade structure?
Double Digging & Bareroot Beds
- What are the pros and cons of bareroot seedlings? What special precautions do you take when planting bareroots? Why?
- What is double digging? How do you perform double digging for tree nurseries? When double digging – how do you mix or amend the soil to obtain the best growing substrate?
- When double digging – how should you position the height of the bed depending on the average rainfall in the area?
Tree Sacks
Seed pretreatment methods
- Why would you want to pretreat seeds versus just sowing them without pre-treating them? What are two reasons to treat seeds before sowing? What does pretreating the seed actually do to the seed? Do you notice any difference between pretreated and untreated seeds? Do all seeds need to be pretreated before sowing? What are different seed pre-treatment methods?
- How do you cut and how deep for the scarify and soak method? What can you use to make the cut? Where do you want to avoid cutting the seeds for the scarify and soak method?
Sowing Seeds
- How can you remove most weeds before planting your nursery?
- How many seeds do you sow in each sack? When determining how many seeds to plant, how can you protect against loss of seedlings?
- What method do you use to create planting holes in tree sacks? How deep should these holes be?
- Why is it important to gently tamp down the soil after covering the seeds?
- For both tree sacks and bareroot beds – how much water do the seeds need right after planting?
- When planting seeds in bareroot beds, how far apart and how deep should you make the planting trenches? For Bareroot beds – what is the spacing of the seeds within the trenches? What should you cover bareroot beds with after planting seeds? Why?
Caring for Seedlings in the Nursery
Watering
- How much water should you use to water your seedlings?
- If a watering can is available, what is proper watering technique? What other materials can you use instead of a watering can?
- What times of day should you water your nursery? If it rains and the soil is still very wet at watering time, should you still water your nursery?
- How do you know if you’re watering too much? What should you do? How do you know if you’re not watering enough? What should you do?
Weeding
Thinning
- What do you do when more than one seedling germinates in a sack?
- Why do you thin seedlings?
- Should you thin in the sun or in the shade?
- How tall should seedlings be when thinned?
- How many seedlings should remain in tree sacks after thinning?
- How do you decide which seedlings to thin out, and which to replant?
- When thinning seedlings – what method do you use to extract the seedling?
- After transplanting, why should disturbed soil be repacked?
- Should replanted seedlings be watered? When?
- How do you determine which bareroot seedlings to thin? Where do you replant these seedlings?
Hardening Off
Popular Fruit Trees: Propagation and Care
Read the Popular Fruit Trees article to familiarize yourself with some of the more common species of fruit trees.Pruning, Harvesting, and Tree Management
Benefits of Pruning
Pruning Do's and Don'ts
- What tools do you need for pruning? When do you use the different tools? Why is it important to keep your tools sharp?
- How do you cut the stems to be sure you’re not damaging the trees?
- How can you prevent a large branch from tearing the bark below, and damaging the tree, as it falls away? Why is it important for the cuts to be slightly angled? After pruning large branches, how can you protect the wound from disease?
- What steps should you take when pruning diseased branches?
Pruning Fruit Trees
- If the tree has lots of branches, will it produce more fruit? Why do you prune fruit trees?
- What type of pruning does a fruit seedling need in the nursery? Why?
- When pruning a young fruit tree, which branches should be cut? Why? How do you shape a young fruit tree?
- Why is it important to prune a grafted fruit tree? What needs to be pruned?
- What are the goals when pruning an adult fruit tree?
- When should each stage of pruning for fruit trees be done (seedlings, young trees, mature trees)?
Pruning and Managing Living Fences and Green Walls
- What’s the purpose of pruning green wall seedlings?
- Why is it important to prune the terminal buds for the first time while they are in the nursery?
- How should you prune your green wall trees at each stage – seedling, after planting, mature trees?
- How do you ensure the green wall forms a solid barrier?
- What is the best time of the year to prune your green wall trees?
Alley Crops and Contours
Pruning and Thinning Timber Trees
- If growing together in a section, how far apart should timber trees be planted? Why?
- How old should timber trees first be when you thin them? Which trees should you thin?
- At what age should you prune or lop timber trees? What time of the year should you do this?
- How far apart should fully grown timber trees be from each other? What are two reasons to plant timber trees? Why is it good to plant timber trees in your Forest Garden?