Plant Management for Nurseries

Learn to manage the plants that grow in a plant production nursery or garden centre.

Production nurseries commonly deal with hundreds of different plant cultivars, and large retail nurseries can deal with many thousands. Every variety of plant is different. It looks and performs differently; and commonly needs to be treated differently, both when in the nursery, as well as after it is sold and leaves.

This course is all about the plants - how to produce them in the first instance, then how to care for them so that they appeal to a buyer and are able to give a return on any investment made.

Lesson Structure

There are 6 lessons in this course:

1. PROPAGATION
   • Sexual propagation
   • Asexual propagation
   • Propagation efficiency
   • Practical exercise
   • Review what you have been learning
2. POTTING AND TRANSPLANTING
   • Transplanting
   • Potting up plants
   • Growing on
   • In-ground production
   • Review what you have been learning
3. SELECTING AND MANAGING NURSERY STOCK
   • Considering your stock options
   • Criteria for selecting plants
   • Developing a nursery stock list – an example
   • Nursery stocklist worksheet
   • Stock plants for production/propagation nurseries
   • Propagation material
   • Quarantine issues when selecting stock
   • Environmental weeds and plant selection
   • Managing plants in retail nurseries
   • Exercise: nursery inspection sheet
   • Holding stock
   • Plant modification
   • Making flowers out of season
   • Using light to modify plant growth
   • Examples of flowering control
   • Review what you have been learning
4. PLANT BREEDING AND OWNERSHIP
   • Genetic improvement of plants
   • Plant reproduction
   • Genetic variations
   • Male sterility
   • Genetics versus environment
   • Monohybrid and dihybrid crosses
   • Quantitative traits
   • Plant breeding programs
   • Hybrid seed production – an outline
   • Hybridising techniques
   • Micropropagation
   • Plant breeders’ rights/plants varieties rights and trademarks
   • Review what you have been learning
5. PEST AND DISEASE MANAGEMENT
   • Integrated pest management
   • Identifying the problem
   • Resistant plants
   • Hygiene
   • Cultural controls
   • Quarantine
   • Physical controls
   • Biological controls
   • Chemical controls
   • Minimising chemical use
   • Types of chemicals
   • A review of chemicals
   • Ways of applying chemicals
   • Weed control
   • Some chemicals and their modes of action
   • Noxious weeds
   • Using chemicals
   • Safe use of weed killers
   • Review what you have been learning
6. GROWING MEDIA
   • Understanding soils
   • Soil testing and sampling
   • Improving soils
   • Potting mixes
   • Propagation media
   • The nutrient elements
   • Nutrition management
   • Review what you have been learning
   • Final assessment

Who is this Course for?

• Nurserymen and nursery employees
• Garden centre staff
• Allied traders who supply soil, pots and other requirements for producing saleable plants
• Landscapers, gardeners, horticulturists, etc who seek to broaden their knowledge and skills
• Anyone else with a need to understand more about nurseries and garden centres