Success of coconut plantation establishment starts with the production of good quality planting materials. Planting coconut seednuts directly in the field is not recommended. Care must be taken in choosing the seedlings to start a plantation since high quality planting materials provide a good head start to sustain the coconut palms productive and economic lifespan of 60 or more years.

Therefore, nurturing coconut seedlings in a well-maintained nursery will allow efficient selection of normal uniform seedlings. The nursery can be located in the interspaces of the coconut plantation, where coconut trees provide shade. But, if an open space is selected, the area should be provided with shade using 50 – 75% shade cloth.

The nursery site should have the following characteristics:
• Be open, level, well-drained and not prone to flooding;
• Have a light or loose-textured soil to facilitate nursery operations; therefore, a sandy or sandy loam soil is recommended;
• Have adequate amount of sunlight and a source of water for irrigation within proximity;
• The site should have agricultural access roads for transportation;
• It should be away from potential sources of pests and diseases;
• The site should have a shed or containers to store materials and supplies, farm implements and small equipment;
• And, have sufficiently trained manpower available to carry out nursery operations.

Seedbed preparation in the pre-nursery
A pre-nursery is used to obtain uniform planting material prior to planting in a nursery proper. It facilitates the sorting of seedlings by age, size or colour, and is especially useful to identify and eliminate off-types. A pre-nursery is also useful to discard seednuts that do not sprout after a specific time (3 – 4 months, depending on variety) along with any chlorotic, contorted, damaged or otherwise unsuitable seedlings.

The site should be cleared, ploughed and rotovated to a fine tilt. The beds should be 10 – 20 cm in height to provide adequate root-room and drainage. They should be 2m in width to enable ease of planting, inspection, and management and maintenance operations. A space of 60cm between two beds will facilitate ease of inspection, selection, and seedling transfer activities. A well-drained plot with friable, sandy loam/loam soils is best suited due to the relative ease in removing the seedlings from the nursery. Heavy clayey soils and waterlogged soils should be avoided. The ideal soil pH ranges from 5.5 – 7.0; however, seedlings are tolerant to a pH range of 4.5 – 8.5.

Planting in the pre-nursery seedbed
The distance between two seednuts along the row should be about 15 cm and the distance between two adjacent rows should be 15 – 20 cm. Seednuts should be laid in trenches in which the depth is 10 – 15 cm. The seednuts are planted by firmly setting them either horizontally or vertically or slightly tilted with the embryo end at the top and the widest of the three segments uppermost.

Vertically-planted seednuts suffer more from drought and are less robust than those from flat or horizontal planting although notching hastens their germination. With horizontal planting, rate of germination and subsequent growth of seedlings are faster compared to vertical planning; this is especially the case with Dwarf cultivars.
The seednuts are then covered with topsoil so that 1/3 of their upper surface is visible. Seed nuts should not be completely covered with soil. Five rows of nuts may be planted in each bed accommodating 50 nuts per row. Each bed should carry the same variety and all seednuts should be of the same age. It is better to time the sowing of seednuts with the onset of the rains. Normally dry coconut fronds and/or coir can be utilized as mulch for the seedbeds.

Seednuts of Tall varieties begin germination within 2 – 4 months after sowing and seednuts of Dwarf varieties usually germinate 1 – 3 months after sowing. Generally, germination is recorded till the fifth month of sowing and a good seed lot will have 80 – 90% germination. Seednuts that do not germinate within five months can be removed from the pre-nursery and composted. A 12% discard of seedlings is acceptable at the pre-nursery seedbed stage.
Selection of seedlings from pre-nursery for planting in main nursery bed.

After four months, early-germinated nuts which have about 5–6cm long shoots are selected for transplanting into the main nursery beds or into polyethylene bags. This operation allows the seedlings more space to grow vigorously and permits screening out of unsuitable seedlings. Earliness of germination is correlated with early yield and early splitting of leaves into leaflets is directly related with speed of germination.

Seedlings with sprouts that are single, sturdy, straight and well-set into the husk should be selected. Off-colour seedlings and those with thin or spindly sprouts, two or more stems and short leaf blade should be discarded. All selected seedlings must be free from diseases and pests.

Selected germinated nuts are removed from the seedbed by lifting with a spade and the roots are trimmed before transferring to the nursery bed which has soil of fine tilt. The trimming of the roots assists the seedlings to establish quickly and will induce them to produce new roots. Seedlings should never be lifted from the soil by pulling the leaves or stem. Seedlings should be planted as early as possible after removal from the pre-nursery; they are planted 1/3 deep in the soil. All vacated plots in the pre-nursery seedbed should be refilled with topsoil so as not to destabilize the remaining ingeminated seed nuts. (Contributed by NAREI)