Transcript M5S1 Onfarm nursery - World Agroforestry Centre

On-farm tree nurseries for
Tree Domestication
Jonathan Muriuki
On-farm tree nurseries;
Overview
• Why focus on on-farm
tree nurseries ?
• Nursery categories
• Constraints and
points of intervention
• Research questions
• Challenges
• Nursery associations
Why focus on the on-farm tree
nurseries ?
• Vital information to tree domestication (species
diversity, supply and demand, improvement
value)
• Seedling distribution and marketing strategies
• Support on-going research (type 2 & 3 on-farm
species trials, nursery experiments)
• Quality seedling production on-farm to reflect
true species/provenance potential
• Income generation to alleviate poverty
• Tree nursery operators as extension agents
Nursery categories
Generalist Vs specialist
• Ease of propagation (seed
pretreatment, vegetative
propagation techniques)
• Area of specialisation
(indigenous species or
exotic, fruit, timber etc)
Central nurseries
• Operated by organisations (schools, NGOs,
research projects, private companies)
• Staff directly employed or re-deployed hence
impressive
• Differ depending on institutional capacity (BAT vs
a primary school)
• Necessary for production of difficult and long-term
species (often specialist)
• Disadvantages - transport of seedlings,
distribution of benefits, cash-flow fluctuations
Group nurseries
• Mainly overflows of other group activities
• Seen as part of social activities
• Different forms e.g central group nursery or
several satellite nurseries or each member has
own nursery under common leadership
• Generate income but rarely make profit
• Good for on-farm trials especially in members
farms
• Constant group disintegration effects
• Members use left-overs which reflect poorly
Individual (private) nurseries
• Privately managed for sale or private use
• More enterprising with seeds purchased and
seedlings sold hence good indicators of
germplasm delivery pathways
• More species diversity for a basketful of
options to clients (often generalist)
• More competitive meaning high seedling
quality but also more variable
Nursery constraints and points
of intervention
• Lack of basic information training and follow-up,
nursery associations,
collaboration links with
other agencies
• Germplasm supply minimal seed supply,
supply information on seed
dealers, contracts for onfarm seed production
Constraints cont..
• Inputs - information and
cheap alternatives
especially water
• Marketing of seedlings Link to users of seedlings
where possible, nursery
associations, linkages
with other agencies,
training on marketing and
entrepreneurship
Research Questions
• How many nurseries do we
need in a landscape ?
• How do we address some of the
constraints ? - MSc studies etc
• Technical questions -Seed
and seedling quality issues
• Socio-economic questions
- community action and
marketing issues
Some challenges to development
of on-farm nurseries
• Community dynamics varying binding factors in
community (group
dynamics, nursery
associations)
• Operator frustrations –
natural calamities, some
manage, some fail;
attitudes
• Balance between research
and development
Nursery associations
• The nursery fashion of farmer co-operatives
as an idea of the project
• Allow transparency and better information
sharing on demand forecast, bulk orders, new
species, seed sources etc
• Channels for collaboration
and training
• Share financial and
marketing information
• Sourcing within network
• Networking with seed
dealers / suppliers
Developing nursery associations
Support in form of
extension visits, seeds,
input packages and training
Little support but
generate income - little
entrepreneurial skills
Networks link to bulk
demand, seed sources,
training and information
on new species & markets
Group nurseries
Groups break
up
Individual nurseries
Link through
workshops,
meetings etc
Nursery associations
- Area specific scale and mode of development