A nursery is a place where plants are propagated and grown to a desired size. Mostly the plants concerned are for gardening, forestry, or conservation biology, rather than agriculture. They include retail nurseries, which sell to the general public; wholesale nurseries, which sell only to businesses such as other nurseries and commercial gardeners; and private nurseries, which supply the needs of institutions or private estates. Some will also work in plant breeding.
A nurseryman is a person who owns or works in a nursery.
Some nurseries specialize in certain areas, which may include: propagation and the selling of small or bare root plants to other nurseries; growing out plant materials to a saleable size, or retail sales. Nurseries may also specialize in one type of plant, e.g., groundcovers, shade plants, or rock garden plants. Some produce bulk stock, whether seedlings or grafted trees, of particular varieties for purposes such as fruit trees for orchards or timber trees for forestry. Some producers produce stock seasonally, ready in the spring for export to colder regions where propagation could not have been started so early or to regions where seasonal pests prevent profitable growing early in the season.
Nurseries
There are a number of different types of nurseries, broadly grouped as wholesale or retail nurseries, with some overlap depending on the specific operation. Wholesale nurseries produce plants in large quantities which are sold to retail nurseries
Wholesale nurseries may be small operations that produce a specific type of plant using a small area of land, or very larger operations covering many acres. They propagate plant material or buy plants from other nurseries which may include rooted or unrooted cuttings, or small rooted plants called plugs, or field grown bare root plants, which are planted and grown to a desired size. Some wholesale nurseries produce plants on contract for others which place an order for a specific number and size of plant, while others produce a wide range of plants that are offered for sale to other nurseries and landscapers and sold as first come first served. Retail nurseries sell plants ready to be placed in the landscape or used in homes and businesses.
Methods
Propagation nurseries produce new plants from seeds, cuttings, tissue culture, grafting, or division. The plants are then grown out to a salable size and either sold to other nurseries that may continue to grow the plants out in larger containers or field grow them to desired size. Propagation nurseries may also sell plant material large enough for retail sales and thus sale directly to retail nurseries or garden centers (which rarely propagated their own plants).
Nurseries may produce plants for reforestation, zoos, parks, and cities. Tree nurseries in the U.S. produce around 1.3 billion seedlings per year for reforestation projects.
Nurseries grow plants in open fields, on container fields, in tunnels or greenhouses. In open fields, nurseries grow decorative trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials. On a containerfield nurseries grow small trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants, usually destined for sales in garden centers. These have proper ventilation, sunlight etc. Plants may be grown by seeds, but the most common method is by planting cuttings, which can be taken from shoot tips or roots.
Conditioning
With the objective of fitting planting stock more able to withstand stresses after outplanting, various nursery treatments have been attempted or developed and applied to nursery stock. Buse and Day (1989),Buse, L.J.; Day, R.J. 1989. Conditioning three boreal conifers by root pruning and wrenching. USDA, For. Serv., Tree Plant. Notes 40(2):33–39. for instance, studied the effect of conditioning of white spruce and black spruce transplants on their morphology, physiology, and subsequent performance after outplanting. Root pruning, wrenching, and fertilization with potassium at 375 kg/ha were the treatments applied. Root pruning and wrenching modified stock in the nursery by decreasing height, root collar diameter, shoot:root ratio, and bud size, but did not improve survival or growth after planting. Fertilization reduced root growth in black spruce but not of white spruce.
Important factors for nursery production For a nursery to produce healthy crops, they must manage many factors, a few of them being irrigation, landscape topography, and soil conditions of the site.
Irrigation
Plants need water to grow. Water needs will vary depending on plant species, weather, and soil. An example is in Ontario, irrigation water is used most in late spring and in summer, when plants need water most, and based on climate patterns in Ontario, this time is also when there is the least amount of rainfall.OMAF Publication 841, Guide to Nursery and Landscape Plant Production and IPM https://files.ontario.ca/omafra-guide-to-nursery-and-landscape-plant-production-pub-841-en-2022-11-22.pdf Some nurseries will create water sources by building a dam, or changing a watercourse.Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. (2022, July 18). Starting a commercial nursery in Ontario. Retrieved from Ontario: https://www.ontario.ca/page/starting-commercial-nursery-ontario or building manmade ponds. The water source and water pumps should to be close to fieldsBilderback, T. (2017). Guide To Nursery And Landscape Plant Production And IPM. North Carolina: North Carolina State University.https://nurserycrops.ces.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/drip_irrigation-field-stock-Bilderback-powerpoint-pdf-good.pdf. In this situation, water will need testing for pH, and testing for chemicals in the water to ensure an acceptable water quality. Two common types of irrigation systems are drip irrigation, and overhead irrigation.
Landscape topography
A good slope for a plant nursery is 1–2 degrees. Any more than 5 degrees will make the nursery susceptible to soil erosion.Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. (2022, July 18). Starting a commercial nursery in Ontario. Retrieved from Ontario: https://www.ontario.ca/page/starting-commercial-nursery-ontario#:~:text=your%20market's%20needs.-,Production%20Systems,deciduous%20shrubs%20and%20herbaceous%20perennials The nursery stock should be planted in rows running across the slopes.Bilderback, T. (2017). Guide To Nursery And Landscape Plant Production And IPM. North Carolina: North Carolina State University.↵↵https://nurserycrops.ces.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/drip_irrigation-field-stock-Bilderback-powerpoint-pdf-good.pdf?fwd=no#:~:text=Over%20head%20irrigation%20systems%20apply,only%20applied%20down%20crop%20rows. If the landscape of the nursery has sections of land where erosion could occur, the nursery needs to come up with a solution such as by using erosion prevention structures like rip rap.Bilderback, T. (2017). Guide To Nursery And Landscape Plant Production And IPM. North Carolina: North Carolina State University.↵↵https://nurserycrops.ces.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/drip_irrigation-field-stock-Bilderback-powerpoint-pdf-good.pdf?fwd=no#:~:text=Over%20head%20irrigation%20systems%20apply,only%20applied%20down%20crop%20rows. Topography impacts nursery design and layout and it is a factor in strategizing what direction to plant rows.Bilderback, T. (2017). Guide To Nursery And Landscape Plant Production And IPM. North Carolina: North Carolina State University.↵↵https://nurserycrops.ces.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/drip_irrigation-field-stock-Bilderback-powerpoint-pdf-good.pdf?fwd=no#:~:text=Over%20head%20irrigation%20systems%20apply,only%20applied%20down%20crop%20rows. It also impacts where windbreaks should be planted. If an area has a flat slope and is open, it will need a windbreak.Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. (2022, July 18). Starting a commercial nursery in Ontario. Retrieved from Ontario: https://www.ontario.ca/page/starting-commercial-nursery-ontario#:~:text=your%20market's%20needs.-,Production%20Systems,deciduous%20shrubs%20and%20herbaceous%20perennials
Soil conditions
For a nursery to produce healthy crops, it will need to have healthy soil. The soil should have good drainage and nutrient holding capacity. Soil testing will help a nursery find out its pH levels, and also the amounts of nutrients in the soil.Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. (2022, July 18). Starting a commercial nursery in Ontario. Retrieved from Ontario: https://www.ontario.ca/page/starting-commercial-nursery-ontario#:~:text=your%20market's%20needs.-,Production%20Systems,deciduous%20shrubs%20and%20herbaceous%20perennials To test soil drainage, one method is to dig an 18" deep hole that is at least 4" in diameter. Fill the hole with water, and leave it for an hour. This will allow the soil to saturate. Next, fill the hole with water again but leave the top 2" of soil in the hole without water. Wait an hour then return to the hole with a measurement tool like a ruler to find out how much water has drained from the hole. The corresponding measurements will allow the tester to decide what type of drainage capacity their soil has. If the water level drops 1/2" or less it is poor draining. If water drops 1/2" to 1", it drains at a medium rate. 1"< means that the soil drains quickly.
Hardening off, frost hardiness Seedlings vary in their susceptibility to injury from frost. Damage can be catastrophic if "unhardened" seedlings are exposed to frost. Frost hardiness may be defined as the minimum temperature at which a certain percentage of a random seedling population will survive or will sustain a given level of damage (Siminovitch 1963, Timmis and Worrall 1975). The term LT50 (lethal temperature for 50% of a population) is commonly used. Determination of frost hardiness in Ontario is based on electrolyte leakage from mainstem terminal tips 2 cm to 3 cm long in weekly samplings (Colombo and Hickie 1987).Colombo, S.J.; Hickie, D.F. 1987. A one-day test for determining frost hardiness using the electrical conductivity technique. Ont. Min. Nat. Resour., For. Res. Note 45. 4 p. The tips are frozen then thawed, immersed in distilled water, the electrical conductivity of which depends on the degree to which cell membranes have been ruptured by freezing releasing electrolyte. A −15 °C frost hardiness level has been used to determine the readiness of container stock to be moved outside from the greenhouse, and −40 °C has been the level determining readiness for frozen storage (Colombo 1997).Colombo, S.J. 1997. The role of operational frost hardiness testing in the development of container stock hardening regimes in Ontario. New. For. 13:449–467.
In an earlier technique, potted seedlings were placed in a freezer chest and cooled to some level for some specific duration; a few days after removal, seedlings were assessed for damage using various criteria, including odour, general visual appearance, and examination of cambial tissue (Ritchie 1982).Ritchie, G.A. 1982. Carbohydrate reserves and root growth potential in Douglas-fir seedlings before and after cold storage. Can. J. For. Res. 12:905–912.
Stock for fall planting must be properly hardened-off. Conifer seedlings are considered to be hardened off when the terminal buds have formed and the stem and root tissues have ceased growth. Other characteristics that in some species indicate dormancy are color and stiffness of the needles, but these are not apparent in white spruce.
Forest tree nurseries
Whether in the forest or in the nursery, seedling growth is fundamentally influenced by soil fertility, but nursery soil fertility is readily amenable to amelioration, much more so than is forest soil.