Apple ring acacia nursery best practices?

Plants
#1

Hello everyone

I am seeing conflicting information about how to start a nursery of Apple ring acacia. What is the best method to start a nursery and when do I transplant Them to their final destination?On two different ECHO urls and documents I see two different answers.

One says to air prune (which should be no problem for me, as long as I have the proper dimensions of air pot to use), and the other says to plant in a nursery bed.

I have plastic waste baskets which I think will work great for air pruning, but I’m worried that they won’t fully mature to the 30 cm recommended for transplanting and definitely will not reach the 90 cm root depth associated with a 30 cm tall seedling (because my pots are only 27cm tall). Are these baskets a poor choice? Should I get tubes that are taller and have holes drilled out instead? I’ve also seen 10x30 cm pots recommended from other sites.

I’d like to start these trees off with the best possible root structure possible.

Alternatively the seed packet my ARA seeds came in, simply said “plant seeds 2-4 cm deep in well drained and composted nursery bed”. What is the proper spacing for the ARA? How do I control the roots if planted directly in a nursery bed? Do I need to thin and transplant to pots at a certain size?

Any help would be appreciated.

Also I am in eastern Uganda outside the town of Tororo, if geography plays in to your responses. About 1400 mm of rain annually, 3920 feet in elevation, almost equatorial.

1 Like
#2

Hey Kevin,

I planted Faidherbia albida in old milk cartons and directly on site. The ones planted directly have done much better, but the ones from the cartons have also done well. We only get 20mm of rain a year, but our water table sits around 15 meters down, so it was important for our trees to have strong roots. I suspect the ones planted better established better roots systems.

http://www.fao.org/livestock/agap/frg/facts/bfs42/2a.htm

I followed the recommendations of the site above. I didn’t scarify the seeds. I soaked them in warm water. Some I let sit over night, but some I took out after a couple of hours. They sprouted in about 2 weeks and grew quickly after that.