B. Chalise1, K.P.Paudyal2, S.P Srivastava3 and K.Bhandari3
1Agricultural Research Station, Dailekh
2Horticultural Research Division, Khumaltar, Lalitpur
3National citrus Research Program, Paripatle, Dhankuta
Abstract
Studies were conducted in Dhankuta district to find the real situation of citrus nursery business in the district during march-April, 2012. During the studies, five nurseries were selected and similar sets of questionnaires were prepared and given to fill to the nursery owners. Direct field observation, measurement, personnel communication and secondary data were used during the study. From the study it was revealed that 11 nurseries were producing saplings in Dhankuta, out of which six nurseries were legally operated. Most of them were producing grafted saplings while others producing both grafted sapling and seedling. All the nurseries were found to be located above 1000 meter above mean sea level. The shoot-tip method of grafting was found to be the most common method of grafting onto trifoliate orange seedling rootstock at very low height ranging from 6 cm to 15 cm due to the poor growth of seedling. Most of the nurseries were maintaining the mother stock inside the screen house but scions were taken from the open field mother plant. Major problems of raising mother stock inside the screen house were high occurrence of citrus scales, aphids, white flies and sooty mould. The age of sapling during selling time was found to be 6 month in most of the nurseries indicating high demand of the sapling. Hardly, some saplings remained for the next year to sell. The income of the citrus nurseries ranged from NRs. 300,000 to 660,575 per annum. Leaf miner, scale insect, lemon dog, twig borers were the important insect pests while damping-off, powdery mildew, root rot, sooty mold and twig blight were the major diseases of the nurseries.
Keywords: Sapling, trifoliate orange, mother stock, shoot-tip grafting, nursery business.