Nursery management provides employment opportunities and helps the economy. An entrepreneur in this field takes on risk to organize and operate a nursery business. Qualities of a successful nursery entrepreneur include taking calculated risks, being innovative, and driving towards goals. Different types of nurseries produce plants for food, medicine, ornamentation, and more. Risks to the business include improper planning of production, sales, and costs. Maintaining records and monitoring activities can help increase profits.

1. Entrepreneurshipin nurserymanagement
Introduction
Nursery is animportant enterprisewhichcreates sizeable employment
opportunities for the rural masses.
There are various types of business areas under horticulture nursery which
provide employment.
Entrepreneurship
The activity of setting upof a business or businesses, taking onfinancial risk
in hope of profit.
Entrepreneur?
An Entrepreneur is apersonwho organizes andmanages a business under
taking, assuming the risk for the sake of profit or any personwho starts and
operates abusiness is an entrepreneur.
Qualities of an entrepreneur required for horticulture nursery
 Risk taking is an important aspect of entrepreneurial life, he is a
calculatedrisk taker.
 Entrepreneurshave a strong desire tohit new goals, he does not rest
until goal is reached.
 They are innovative and can convert adversities intoopportunities.
 They seek out experts for assistancerather thanfriends andrelatives.
 They take immediate feedback on performance and prefer prompt and
accurate data, irrespectiveof whether it is favourable or not.
 They are achievement drivenpeople whoare optimistic evenin
unfamiliar situation.
 A successful entrepreneur has openmind.
 A successful entrepreneur caninfluence others andmotivate themto
think and act inhis way.
Role of nursery entrepreneurship

2.  The nursery enterprisehelps inproviding plant and planting material
and relatedprocessesthat indirectly helpthe national economy.
 The nursery enterprisealsoassistsingaining inmore balanced
financial development as the business flourishes bothinurban and
rural sector.
 It helps inempowering people by providing increasedcommunity
participation.
 It reduces the migrationof labour from rural to urban areas in search
of employment.
 Most importantly the nursery enterprisecontributes tonational
economy by providing employment opportunities for the skilledand
unskilledworkers.
Types of nursery enterprises
 Fruit plant nursery
 Ornamental plant nursery
 Flowering forest nursery
 Vegetable nursery
 Medicinal andaromatic plant nursery
 Retail nursery
 Wholesale nursery
 Plant library
 Landscape gardening consultancy
 Plant tissue culture nursery
 Secondary hardening nursery
Fruit plant nursery
 Itproduces fruitplants and grafts of improved varieties for plantation in
different agro-climatic zones.
 They producethe planting material of different varieties in different
regions, as per demand.
 Itincludes different fruit crops and seedling for sale as per demand and
preference of farmers.
 Ornamentalplant nursery

3.  Itprovides various plants of aesthetic value for the urban dwellers,
institutes and various establishments.
 Itproducevarious plants like flower plants, indoor and outdoor plants,
flowering shrubs and creepers.
 Itsupply plants for different lawns and grasses for beautification
purposes.
Flowering forest tree nursery
 The forest nurseries havea mandate of production of various forest
trees for afforestation programmein reserveareas.
 Most of these plants are not available for sale from forestdepartment.
 These flowering tree plants are in great demand in urban development
areas and townships, and also in avenue plantation on sides of roads and
pathways.
Vegetable nursery
 There is a huge demand of vegetable seedling during kharif and rabi
and summer season.
 The vegetable seedlingsare growninpropagation trays by the nursery
men for the farmers.
 The vegetable seedling require 18days-40days for preparationof
seedlings for supply tofarmers.
Medicinal and aromatic nursery
 It includes productionof sarpagandha ,mint, ashwagandha , aloe vera
etc are produced for medicinal and aromatic purposes for different
pharmaceutical industry.
 These plants are tradedfor high value oils and tuber powders.
Wholesale and retail nurseries
 The wholesale nurseries prepareseedlings andgrafts of various
ornamentals and fruit plants on large scale and supply them to
different small retail nurseries.

4.  Retail nurseries procure these plants fromwholesalenurseriesinbulk
quantities.
Plant tissue culture and secondary hardening nurseries
 Tissue culture plants are propagatedthroughmicropropagation.
 These are highly sensitive toenvironmental stressanddifferent pest
and diseases.
 These plants are therefore requiredtobe hardenedin shade net house
before they are plantedin the field.
 The rearing of suchtissue culture plants at secondary stage is called
hardening , the nursery undertaking this operationbefore planting in
fieldis calledsecondary hardening innursery.
Plant libraries
 The plant library is a concept similar tothe book library where the
plants are suppliedto various landscapers andevent managers
organising cultural, social andother events.
Landscape gardening
 It is a master gardenwhich supplies andundertakes plantation of
flowering trees, ornamental plants, shrubs,bushes etc. for
beautificationof surroundings, landscape basedonshape, slope,
location, type of soil etc.
Risk analysis in nursery enterprise
Various factors that can leadto losses innursery enterprise are as follows:
 Under utilisationof capacity
 Untimely availability andsale of plants
 Productionnot as per demand
 Increasing competition
 Poor recovery of credit sales
 Increasing cost of labour and raw material

5.  Poor technical knowledge
Under-utilization of capacity
 The productionof nursery plant below the total productioncapacity
leads to poor returns.
 This may happen despite availability of mother plants and other raw
materials.
Untimely availability and sale of plants
 Many times the plants and grafts producedinnursery are not
according to the time of demand.
 Plants are ready for sale during other parts of the year when usually
the plantationseasonis over and the demand of plants drop
considerably.
 This can leadto poor sale of plants eventhough the plants are made
available.
Production not as per demand
 The demand for plant may differ from actual production.
 This leads tobalance stock of plants over an increasedperiodof time.
 Ex: Ratna or alphonsomango grafts are preparedwhenthe demand for
kesar mango exists.
 This may leadto discrepancy insale are subdued sales.
Increasing competition
 Many times sale andavailability of non-descript plants fromnurseries
of other states andcompeting methodcan lead to poor sales from
ones nursery.
 For this careful marketing strategy toovercome the competitionin
nursery.
Poor recovery of credit sales
 In a nursery enterprise, unrealistic andhigher sale of nursery plants on
credit leadtopoor recovery of sales realization.

6.  It requires considerableeffort of time and money to make credit
recovery.
 This is an important factor that needs tobe consideredfor selling the
nursery plants on credit.
Increasing cost of labour and raw material
 Poor planning and anticipationof labour and input may lead to higher
cost of labour and raw materials.
 The unavailability of labour and increasing cost of various nursery
inputs like river bedsoil, plastic material etc. canalsocause losses.
Poor technical knowledge
 Nursery enterprise requires soundtechnical knowledge andskills for
productionof seedlings andgraft as per demand.
 It requires adequate training andprofessional knowledgeof
productiontechnology of nursery plants.
How to increase profit in nursery enterprise
 Productionof plants in nursery is a commercial business activity andis
to be seenfrom the point of view of economics of expenditure and
returns.
 There needto balance the technical aspects andpractical feasibility of
productionand sale of plants in a nursery.
 Maintenance of records of expenditure andincome needto be carried
out regularly toascertainthe profitability.
 Monitoring of daily activities innursery activities canprovide
immediate answers toproblems facedduring the productionand sales
in nursery.
 By increasing the sales throughthe marketing, publicity, advertisement
in magazines and other mass media.

7.  There needto be coordinationamong three important aspects of
nursery enterprises whichare productionof plants, rearing of plants
and sales of plants.
References
 Modernnursery management – R.L. Bhardwaj and D.K. Sarolia.
 Plant nursery management – P.K. Ray.
 Textbook of plant propagationand nursery management – R.R. Sharma
and Hare Krishna.
“An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew
hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.”- Roy Ash