Presently, vegetable, fruit and flower seedlings are raised by the farmers themselves in small, captive nurseries, and thereafter transplanted to the main field. This practice poses the following problems:
- Most farmers aren’t aware of scientific seedling management techniques.
- As the nursery beds are in the farmers’ fields and surrounded by older crops, there is always the possibility of pest infestations.
- When young seedlings are affected by bacterial and fungal diseases at an early stage, they never fully recover and can’t produce a yield that matches their genetic potential.
- Weak seedlings most often undergo transplantation shock and either die or do not produce the expected yield.
- Because of non-uniform yields, farmers are often forced to bear a higher cost of labor.