Nursery management operations of gum Arabic (Acacia senegal) seedlings.

Abstract

To confront the challenges posed by desertification and climate change processes coupled with their environmental and socioeconomic impact, massive tree planting programmes have been promoted by different governments and individuals in sahelian regions of Africa. The success of any tree planting exercise depends largely on the use of good nursery seedlings stock. Presently, nursery techniques used in raising seedlings for the establishment of A. senegal plantations in the country and some of the desertification and erosion control programmes are those recommended for some other dry-land tree seedlings, which are not quite suitable for the crop. The various nursery maintenance operations (nursery demarcation, shade management, filing of failed pots thinning, watering, root pruning, weeding and insect pest control) treated in this paper are results of A. senegal nursery experiments at the Rubber Research Institute of Nigeria which have been tested and found suitable for the production of healthy seedling stock.