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Conditioning Nursery Plants to Promote Hardiness and Dormancy

Most novice growers don’t give much thought to hardening or dormancy because they are much more concerned with getting seeds to germinate or cuttings to root, and then putting on enough height and stem diameter growth to meet specifications. From my point of view, however, hardening is the most important phase of nursery culture because plants that don’t receive proper hardening do not store well over winter and are less likely to survive and grow after outplanting. This is even more important for forest, conservation, and native plants that will be outplanted on relatively harsh sites without subsequent watering or other supplemental treatments. This special conditioning is so important that we dedicated the last of three growth phases to hardening and dormancy induction


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Author(s): Thomas D. Landis

Publication: Forest Nursery Notes - 2013 Winter - 2013 Winter Forest Nursery Notes Publications by Article