Thursday

Nursery management at VARTC

After harvesting in the seed gardens, the seed nuts are trimmed to facilitate sprouting then placed into seedbeds (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Seedbed

Culling rate in VARTC nursery is about 25%. This involves eliminating abnormal sprouts and, after 80% nuts have germinated, all the nuts remaining in the seedbeds, as well as an ultimate selection of the seedlings before planting.
Germinated seed nuts are left with bare-roots without polybags  (Figure 2) or placed into polybags (Figure 3). In the context of Vanuatu archipelago, the weight and the size of polybags constitute a handicap due to the high transportation cost. So the number of seedlings sold without polybags is much more important than with polybags.
Figure 2. Seedlings without polybags
Figure 3. Seedlings in polybags