Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

INFLUENCE OF ROOT TRAINER/CONTAINER SIZE FOR RAISING QUALITY SEEDLINGS OF AILANTHUS ALTISSIMA MILL

Sabeena Nabi, P.A. Khan and Shabir Ahmad Rather

Abstract

In modern forestry, it is important to produce quality seedlings as it is considered as the key element for the success of any afforestation programme, which ultimately depends upon the root system. Modern plastic containers or root trainers have been successfully and are increasingly being used to deal with the problems of root coiling and distortion commonly encountered in polybag grown seedlings. In the present investigation, three different container/root trainer sizes viz; 150 cc, 250 cc and 300 cc were tried and the growth, biomass, relative growth rate and quality production of Ailanthus altissima Mill. seedlings in 8 months time period was studied. The results revealed that the 300 cc container/root trainer size scored maximum in respect of the morphological and growth parameters recorded due to reason of greater space for the well developed root system, more growing media holding capacity and the low density than the other two containers/root trainers.