This article will assist you with the knowledge about the practical methods, materials and equipment generally used in tree crop production. Equipment and materials for tree crop production can be broadly divided into two categories, although the uses may overlap.
These are nursery equipment and materials, and field equipment and materials. Specialized tools and materials are needed for certain operations in the cultivation of individual crops.
Nursery Equipment
The nursery site must have been cleared of trees, trunks, wings, and any trash by burning or packing away. You will need to apply the correct methods of cultivation layout. If you are planning a temporary nursery, you may not need to maintain a stock of tools and materials on the site.
However, permanent nurseries require a permanent stock of the appropriate tools and materials. The following are the major nursery equipment that you may need:
1. Cutlass or Machete: This is used for cutting sticks, wood, weeds, and bush undergrowth, especially outside the nursery fence along the rows of the windbreak
2. Spade hoe: It is used for surface cultivation, preparation of beds, and construction of drainage and irrigation channels.
3. Local hand hoe: This is used for surface cultivation weeding, earthling up of crops, and clearing of irrigation and drainage channels and nursery paths.
4. Spade: The spade is used generally for digging, turning over of soil’s topsoil and subsoil clearing paths, and drains, mixing soils, and compost and construction both sunken and raised beds during dry and rainy seasons respectively. The spade is an indispensable tool in a nursery.
5. Shovel: The shovel is similar in shape to the spade but with a larger blade. Its main use is in loading soils into trucks or trolleys and in clearing nursery paths. It can be used as a substitute for the spade in several nursery operations.
6. Rake: This is used for gathering weeds after hoeing and leveling surfaces of nursery beds. It is also useful in spreading fertilizers, preparatory to mixing. It is an indispensable tool.
7. Digging fork: It is the main tool for loosening soils, burying weeds, preparing and turning compost, removing plant remains, and for mixing particulate and bulky materials.
8. Trowel: This is like a running-mate to the horticulturist. It is a very useful tool in the nursery. It is used for transplanting seedlings by mixing small quantities of fertilizers, soils, and sawdust, for filling poly-bags with appropriate growing medium, for weeding, for loosening the surface of soil, and for application of fertilizers. The trowel is a very flexible tool.
9. Wheelbarrows: You will discover that they are essential for the movement of soils, fertilizers, seedlings, and other movable materials and tools around the nursery.
10. Watering cans: You will use these for sprinkling water over the young seedlings. Different size jet nozzles should be stocked as very fine jets are needed for newly sown small seeds while medium-sized jets are used for growing seedlings.
11. Knives: You will need three different types of knives in your nursery;
i. Penknife – This is used for general purposes of cutting ropes, and sharpening of pencils. It must be very strong.
ii. Pruning knife – Specifically for pruning operations. Must be very sharp and well-kept.
iii. Budding knife – For budding and grafting only.
12. Secateurs : This is a scissor-like tool specially made for pruning small branches, and leaves and for canopy maintenance.
13. Head Pan and buckets: You will need these for carrying materials and for measurements.
14. Garden line or tape measure 30m length: You will use this for lining out operations and setting off right angles. It is an indispensable tool in the nursery
15. Seed boxes: These are needed for sowing small seeds that are later to be pricked out. These can be constructed locally on the nursery site.
16. Budding tapes: These are needed for budding and grafting operations. Budding tapes are being replaced with Raphia fiber on many occasions in different parts of West Africa.
Nursery operation is becoming specialized. Different types of equipment are being invested to meet the needs of specialized nurseries. The nurseryman must constantly keep abreast of the equipment to be up to date in the selection of his equipment.
Read Also: Ideal Agricultural Nursery Management Practices
Nursery Materials
You will need many different types of materials in the nursery. Your need will depend on the specific crop being raised. However, the following materials are some of those often used in a nursery.
1. Polythene bags: They are used for various activities in the nursery depending on the size, thickness, and texture. They are obtainable from manufacturers cane baskets used to be preferred to polybags in those days when labor was cheap. Nowadays, the cane basket is too expensive and for the economy, poly bags are in common use.
2. Insecticides and Fungicides: A good stock of different types of insecticides and fungicides must be maintained. As plants are crowded together in the nursery, each disease or pest outbreak must be promptly treated.
3. Herbicides: These are used for weed control, particularly in controlling weeds along nursery paths and boundaries.
4. Fertile topsoil: This is one of your prerequisites for selecting a site for a nursery. Where nursery beds are used for sowing and raising of seedlings, the topsoil of the nursery site should be fertile, or fertility has to be raised with the aid of admixtures such as farmyard manure or compost.
5. Sawdust: Germinating seedling generally requires light and fertile soil. To lighten the texture of topsoil for good growth of seedlings, it is an advantage to maintain a regular supply of well-settled sawdust in the nursery.
6. Manures and fertilizers: Manures and fertilizers are not normally needed in the nursery provided fertile topsoil is available nevertheless, it is desirable to keep a small stock of complete fertilizer mixtures preferably those carrying traces of micronutrients.
7. Plants: It is a practice to keep a stock of various sizes of wood (planks) in the nursery. They are needed for many varied constructions such as seed boxes and seed trays.
The materials needed in nurseries will vary with the manure and intensity of operations. The list above is not exhaustive. The golden rule is to stock the nursery with whatever is needed well ahead of the time of use.
Read Also: How to Maintain Proper Irrigation in Agricultural Fields
Field Equipment
Various tools are needed for planting, maintenance, and harvesting of tree crops in the field. While nursery tools are more or less common for most of the crops, field tools are more specialized. Specialized equipment will be treated under each crop. The more common ones are listed below for you.
1. Clearing equipment: The types of tools or machines used for bush clearing will vary with the size of the plantation. You will need heavy machineries such as bulldozers and tree dozers to clear bush for big plantations. For small farms, the bush-clearing tools consist of machetes, axes, pickaxes, mattocks, sharpening stones, and files.
2. Digging equipment: You will normally dig holes for transplanting seedlings of tree crops in Nigeria. The tools you require are the cutlass, shovel, and hoe. With increasing shortage and high cost of labour, you should mechanize. This operation is especially on large plantations. Tractor-operated post-hole diggers may be particularly useful.
3. Lining up equipment: The amount of surveying to be done will depend on the nature of the land. Sloping lands will require contouring either for terracing or for contour planting when levelling equipment such as dump levels are needed. On fairly level lands, levelling may not be necessary in which case the lining tools will consist of machetes, ranging poles, garden lines, pegs, mallets, and steel measuring tapes.
4. Planting or transplanting equipment: The equipment you will require for transplanting consists of a sharp knife for cutting polythene bags, and shovels or spades for filling up holes with soil.
5. Field maintenance equipment: Because of the increasing mechanization of the maintenance operations of the crops, requirements for various tools in the maintenance of tree crops in Nigeria are gradually changing.
However, you may find the following tools in dispensable: machetes, weeding hoes, extension ladders, pruning knives, lawn movers either hand-operated or tractor-mounted, spraying pumps, recording materials, harvesting knives, processing, grading, and packing tools.
Sometimes you may need soil augers to provide an opportunity to sample the soils in the plantation to allow chemical analysis soil laboratories can provide valuable advice on fertilization practices based on correctly collected soil samples.
Researchers are concentrating on how best to mechanize maintenance, harvesting, processing, and grading operations. You should keep abreast of any new developments in appropriate tools as will be recommended from time to time by researchers.
Field Materials
You will discover that the exact materials needed by you for field operations will vary with the individual tree crops. Nevertheless, it is advisable for planters or farm managers to keep a stock of the right types of fertilizers, plant protection chemicals, herbicides, growth regulators, substances, and mulching materials mulching needs to be carried yearly until the young trees close their canopy.
After the canopy has been closed, there may be accidents such as strong storms, there may be accident such as strong storms, fallen trees, and pest damage that could cause a break in the canopy. The soil below such breaks must be mulched in addition to other steps that are taken to repair the damage.
As more people take an interest in tree crop production, our researchers in relevant Research Institutes will come out with modern field materials for Fruit Tree Production throughout the country.
In summary, this article has taken you through various nursery equipment, nursery materials, field equipment, and field materials, you have also learned that most materials and equipment needed in crop production can be sourced locally, simulated, or manufactured. When necessary equipment and materials are available as and when needed successful fruit tree production is guaranteed.
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