REDUCING NURSERY PERIOD IN FOUR TROPICAL HARDWOODS BY <em>RHIZOBIUM</em> INOCULATION

Abstract

The age of tree seedlings at the time of planting varies from six months to one year and even two years in some species. Such use of nursery areas for protracted periods considerably escalates the cost of seedling production. With a view, therefore, to assessing whether nursery period could be reduced by the use of micro-organisms, four tree species, Acacia auriculiformis,A. nilotica,
Albizia lebbeck and Hardwichia binata,were each inoculated with three different rhizobial strains and a non-specific rhizobium in conjunction with arbuscular mycorrhiza(AM). The results showed that with suitable strains it is possible to reduce the nursery age of the seedlings from six months to four months without compromising seedling vigour or survival rate. The growth of four-month-old inoculated seedlings was comparable with that of six-month-old normal (uninoculated) seedlings, and the survival rate of the former was higher when compared with uninoculated seedlings in all species.