1 commercial seed 

 company. The staff budget 

 runs several hundred 

 thousand dollars per year, 

 and it is roughly estimated 

 the industry spends 20 to 

 30 times as much in 

 individual efforts. This is 

 one of the outstanding 

 examples of consistent, 

 long-term commitment to a 

 forest research program. 



Work on nursery practices 

 is being carried out by the 

 Auburn University-Southern 

 Forest Nursery Management 

 Cooperative. Formed in 

 1 970, it operates on an 

 annual budget of 

 approximately $250,000 

 and is composed of 1 9 

 industry members and 13 

 others, including State 

 forestry commissions and 

 chemical companies. 

 Cooperators are producing 

 almost 1.5 billion seedlings 

 annually. Its mission is 

 threefold: (1) to gather data 

 on relationships among 

 selected pesticides, pests, 

 soil characteristics, and 

 seedling production in 

 forest nurseries; (2) to obtain 

 registration of pesticides; 

 and (3) to develop 

 techniques for increasing 

 the quantity and quality of 

 tree seedlings. In addition 

 to performing research, the 

 cooperative will continue to 

 keep the nursery industry 

 informed of practices 

 already found to improve 



seedling production such 

 as those put forth by 

 Wakeley in 1954. 



Work of this cooperative 

 has been instrumental in 

 replacing hand weeding, 

 the use of mineral spirits, 

 and methyl bromide 

 fumigation with herbicides 

 for control of weeds in 

 nursery beds. The 

 cooperators' nurseries are 

 saving more than $2 million 

 per year below 1 975 costs 

 in reduced use of these 

 practices. More important, 

 they are producing better 

 planting stock at these 

 reduced costs. Most 

 herbicides currently used in 

 southern forest nurseries 

 have been registered with 

 data collected by this 

 cooperative. 



One of the areas of 

 investigation contributing to 

 potential productivity 

 increases is the research in 

 forest fertilization being 

 carried out by members of 

 the forest industry and 

 agricultural chemical 

 companies in cooperation 

 with the School of Forestry 

 Resources and 

 Conservation and the Soil 

 Science Department of the 

 University of Florida. This 

 effort to promote research 

 in forest soil management 

 with emphasis on forest 

 fertilization and tree nutrition 

 has been ongoing since 



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