Abstract
The present study was undertaken to suggest methods to improve the nursery technology. The project also envisaged to estimate the mean number of plantable stumps per bed in teak nurseries in Kerala and to suggest an easy and indestructive plantability criterion instead of the one based on stump diameter that is in vogue at present. Performance of 31 teak nurseries located in different parts of Kerala has been analysed in detail with respect to total and plantable stumps. The results revealed that the total number of stumps per standard nursery bed varied from nursery to nursery and the proportion of non-plantable seedlings was found to be much higher in most of the nurseries. From the data obtained from this study, a new plantability criterion was developed based on height of the seedlings with a value of 23 less than or equal to H less than or equal to 56 cm. For evaluating the planting stock in any nursery, this criterion will be of much use since it is easier to adopt and at the same time non destructive. The nursery experiments conducted in the KFRI nursery at Palapilly, revealed that fruits having higher germinability are preferable for better nursery stock irrespective of the genetic source and that through proper management of the nursery the proportion of plantable material can be raised to about 90 percent of the total seedlings in the nursery. The study also shows that the fruit size does not have any influence on seedling growth and hence, there is no need for grading of fuits. However, it was observed that fruits with less than 9 mm diameter give less number of seedlings. When the sowing methods were compared, broadcasting was found to be better than dibbling. The result have also shown that seed rate can be increased upto 8 kg per bed of standard size (12 X 1.2m) for getting more plantable seedlings. Experiements to compare pit planting and crow bar planting with stumps of different thickness indicated that pit planting is better than crow bar planting and that stumps of 1.5 to 2.0 cm diameter performed betterthan stumps of 1 to 1.49 cm diameter.`