Some observations on the pre-nursery system for raising coconut seedlings

A pre-nursery system fur raising coconut seedlings was compared with the conventional nursery. The two major refinements introduced in the pre-nursery system are the slicing of seed nuts and transplanting of sprouted seed nuts from pre-nursery beds to nurserv beds, soon after sprouting. The rate of sprouting in the Pre-nursery system was significantly superior. At the end of 20 weeks 76% of the seednuts in the pre-nursery had sprouted as compared to 67% in the conventional nursery. However, the number of plantable seedlings produced was not signifivantly different. The cost of production of seedlings in the pre-nursery system was over 50% more than that of the conventional nursery. It appears that slicing the seednut facilitates sprouting but transplanting sprouted seednuts from the pre-nursery caused a setback to the development of the seedlinjr*. I N T R O D U C T I O N The use of a pre-nursery system in the production of coconut seedlings is a recen