Chapters authored
Species Selection and Nursery Technique Adoption for Seedling Establishment in Bangladesh — Towards Enhancing Plantation Programme
Small-scale nursery owners can play a vital role in biodiversity conservation through providing seedlings of forest tree species, horticultural species, flower species and medicinal plants to afforestation, reforestation, social forestry, agro-forestry, shelter belt and home gardening in Bangladesh. The present study of the nursery status of Bangladesh investigated socio-demographic characteristics, farm and farming characteristics, species selection and adoption of nursery techniques by small-scale nursery owners. A survey was conducted of 252 sample nurseries which were selected randomly. The investigation revealed that majority of the nursery owners were mid-aged (30–49 years) male (82.4%) people who took it as primary occupation (86.3%) for more than 20 years (38.1%), but a considerable amount of the respondents had no schooling (34%). Most of the owners rented a small area of land (0.5–5 acre) for the activities on a term basis. About 39.9% of the respondents raised planting materials for horticultural and forest tree species together. The study revealed that fruit-bearing (RF-28.69) and fast-growing species (RF-17.47) were considered as the criteria for species selection. Mangefera indica, Manilkara zopota, Zizyphus mauritiana, Lichi chinensis, Artocarpus heterophyllus, Spondia dulcis, Citrus citrus, Swietenia mahagoni, Psidium guajava, Cocos nucifera, Albizia lebeck, Citrus grandis, Feronia limonia, Averrhoa carabola, Dulbergia sissoo were the top-ranked species preferred by the nursery owners. Majority of the respondents practiced grafting and budding for vegetative propagation and practiced submersion of seeds under water and scarification as pre-sowing treatment for seed germination. On the basis of research findings, it is suggested to facilitate widespread acceptance of forest tree species, along with fruit-bearing species, and take account of small-scale nursery owners’ views and preferences for achieving adoption of forest tree-based farming systems in a climate change situation.
Part of the book: Precious Forests