Five acre Nursery is a family owned and run company, which has been producing native seedlings since 1978. We produce vegetable and native seedlings to orders. We have held full nursery accreditation since August 1997.
We have supplied native seedlings to most Forestry investment companies (mainly Euc.globulus) in the past 23 years. We have also supplied around 1 million native seedlings direct to farmers and Land Care groups each year for rehabilitation work through out the wheatbelt. This work involves about 30 various native species mainly Eucalypts, Acacias and Melaleuca seedlings. For the past six years we have supplied the Main Roads Department with their annual tree contracts for the southwest. These contracts can be up to 50 varieties of endemic native species. We have also supplied Western Power, CALM and Water Authority with native seedlings for various rehabilitation projects. For the past two years we have supplied the Water Authority contract for their Harvey Dam rehabilitation work. For the past three years we have supplied Acica Accuminata seedlings for the various Sandalwood project. This average 1.25 million seedlings per year. We also supply large quantities of Melaleuca Uncinata seedlings for Broom Bush projects. The Mel. Uncinata (Broom Bush) seedlings were broken up to four providences of seed after trials of wide range of seed sources. In the trials we saw a large variance in seed performance and continued to learn more about the requirements to successfully grow Melaleucas.
Five Acre Nursery employs five full time staff with 50 years of experience of growing native seedlings between us. We employ local casuals as required and have a group that return for each tree season. All our staff have passed relevant training courses in chemical handling and machinery operations as required for nursery accreditation.
We grow the tree seedlings in Col-max 72 cell trays and the vegetable seedlings 198 cell trays, using a composted pine bark and sand media mixed on site. The tray sand mix are steam sterilised to 62 degrees Centigrade after filling. We use two KW seeding machines which both have been modified to our specifications for tree and vegetable seedlings. After seeding the tree seedlings are place in the shade house on raised steel benches, with 50% shadecloth roof. While the vegetable seedlings are placed on similar racks in the greenhouse.The floor is 100mm of blue metal and sloped to drain all excess water out of the greenhouses and shade house. The irrigation is all micro sprinklers that give near on perfect coverage with very little effect from wind. The irrigation system is all controlled by an Elder-Gal computer system, which also controls the environmental management of the greenhouses and an automatic frost control. This system is used to control all the fertigation of the nursery and has performed faultlessly for the past five years. We have developed our own fertiliser program for tree seedlings over the past 2 years and are pleased with the results. We source all our water requirements from 4 bores on the property, which provide excellent quality water in abundance; we also have mains supply if required.
The tree seedlings are thinned in the shade house and grown on under the shade cloths till they are large enough to have the shade cloths removed, and grown on and hardened off in the open. It is similar for the vegetable seedlings which are moved out of the greenhouse ,after been thinned, into the shade house and stay under shadecloth between October to March. The other months of the year they are left out in the open.
We use a preventative spray program on a 10-14 day rotation to control any disease problems we may encounter. We rotate between the different chemical groups to avoid building any disease resistance. At dispatch of the tree seedlings we punch all our seedlings for easy removal from the trays. We also bulk the trays if required to do so. We have our own truck and trailer that can deliver 150,000 seedlings a load. This takes approximately 3 hours to load and is designed for quick and easy unloading at the planting site. The vegetable seedlings are loaded into frames which vary in size to cater for large and small orders. Before been loaded the seedlings are give a feed and treated to the growers requirements which helps them survive when they are transplanted.
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