Nursery Production

The Key to a successful Industry

Kim Wilson

Gray Plantations

“The Forgotten Sector”

The nursery is equally important as the

processor & grower.

Poor quality trees are with you for the life of

the orchard.

Poor NIS prices are only there for 1 year!!!!

Nursery Production in Australia

Nurseries & Orchard Rejuvenation

Nurseries around the World

Nursery Accreditation

Nursery R & D

Nursery Production in Australia

• 30 years experience – watching

• Demand for trees closely follows NIS price.

• > 90% Grafted – H2 Rootstock

• Small % - Budding & Cutting – variety

related

• Process

– Germination - Sand beds

– Potting up – 8lt bags

– Grafting

Nursery Production in Australia

Seed germination

18 – 24 months

Nursery Production in Australia Currently very strong demand (high NIS)

18 month – 24 month wait

Current varieties

North 842

A203

Daddow

741

South 842

816

246

741

Nursery Production in Australia

Lot of nurseries come & go

Mainly due to waiting time

Only two large commercial nurseries

Others supplying own needs

General fruit tree nurseries

Nurseries & Orchard Rejuvenation

• Obviously nurseries will play a big part

– Commercial nurseries

– Nursery for own use

• Rejuvenation

– Existing varieties

– New varieties from breeding program

• I believe anybody propagating the new

varieties should require approval – AMS

• Based on current methods of propagation

nurseries will require a large source of

scion wood.

– Preferably close to nursery

– Trees need to be a few years old at least

– Varieties clearly identified

– These trees can’t be data trees

• Release of Regional Variety Trial scion

wood in the late 80’s??????????

Nurseries & Orchard Rejuvenation

Nurseries around the World

• Poor nursery stock

• Poor orchards trees

• Poor performance

• Major influence on quality

Potting Mix

Water quality

Brazil – Most good quality

South Africa

Vietnam – Most nursery poor quality – 1 very good quality

100,000 seedlings

China – Many nurseries, mixed quality

Thailand - Marcotting

Burma – 100,000 seedlings

Sri Lanka – Trials 2,000 trees

Nursery Accreditation

• The AMS has no official “Accreditation

scheme”

• Nursery Industry – N. I. A. S. A.

• Strong demand = back yard nurseries

Can lead to poor quality

I like the SAMAC system of “affiliated

nurseries”

Nursery R & D

• Australian industry spend $2m / year on

R & D

• Zero $ on nursery R & D

• Why do the two largest producing countries

propagate in complete opposite ways?

• Why do we still use H2 rootstock?

• Cuttings – Large numbers would be difficult

sell. !!!!

Nursery R & D

• Why don’t we “mini” graft?

• Producing nursery stock is expensive &

not very profitable.

– Researched Avocadoes, Citrus etc

– Most sell at higher price & quicker to grow

• Perhaps there is an opportunity for joint

R & D between countries!!!!!!!!!

Thank You