Most four year horticulture programs offer extensive education in nursery management and business. Depending upon location, maybe even two year programs are available.

Working for an active, productive nursery is also extremely beneficial.

If you haven't already subscribed to Nursery Management Magazine, you should do so.

http://store.amerinursery.com/shop.php?c=AN8&x=Nursery_Garden_Center_Management

That's fine. The nearest college that offers such a program is a 3 hour drive. The only time of year they offer courses is when I'm working. E.g. They start before I've finished up fall operations. Spring semester finishes after I've started spring operations.

U of Guelph has some online courses. One of them had a 5 lesson sampler. Each lesson had the equivalent of about 5 pages of text and 10 multiple choice questions. It took me 75 minutes to finish all 5 lessons. The course itself was some 30 lessons, and cost several hundred dollars. The material was very very general. (Plants make sugar and cellulose from CO2 and water....)

Maybe management is the wrong thing to be asking.

I'm looking for a forum where I can ask:

1. How do you determine the optimum time release slow release fertilizer for use on Picea glauca grown in a 110 day growing season with average temperatures ranging from 8 to 18 C during the trees active growth period?
2. What is the optimum soil characteristic drain time for large pots (#10-#15) when watered by a 1 gph dripper?
3. How do I selectively breed wind pollenated trees?
4. How do I effectively recruit workers in a low population area?
5. How do I control dandelions and other airborne seeds in my pots? (Few herbicides are licensed for use in containers in Canada)
6. How do you educate customers?
7. What are effective irrigation systems for the small grower?
8. How do I determine the optimum orientation of a green house for forcing spring bulbs for mother's day?
9. What are the tradeoffs of using recycled pots?
10. How do you mix your soil if you don't have an extra $20K kicking around?
11. What are good sources for liners in Canada?
12. What is the chilling requirement for white spruce to break dormancy?
13. Where can I find a supplier of Prunus nigra in Canada?
14. What are suitable plum root stocks for grafting in cold climates?
15. What is optimum timing and amount for final irrigation before freezeup to reduce winter damage on various species?
16. What are the tradeoffs between grassed and non-grassed aisles?
17. How can I modify common procedures to minimize pesticide use?
18. How do I deal with porcupines?
19. If I'm using field soil as an ingrediant in my potting mix, what is the best way to maintain that soil weed free AND also keep reasonable tilth?

Yikes!

When I was first building and getting my wholesale nursery up and running, I found that my many salespeople were sources of superior practical knowledge. It was in their best interest to know that things (irrigation, equipment, chemicals, soil mix, fertilizers, etc.) were ALL doing what they were supposed to be doing. This was even if I didn't buy anything.

I suggest that you reach out to those well trained people with some of your technical questions.

You also clearly need to associate yourself with professional groups of some kind. For example.....in the U.S., most states have their own Nursery and Landscape Association. In South Carolina, I belonged to The South Carolina Nursery and Landscaping Association.

We had a big trade show and educational conference every year, where important contacts were made and lots of great speakers appeared. I eventually became one of their regular speakers, which I enjoyed a great deal.

SCNLA also conducted smaller, one day workshops in different parts of the state, focusing on one major topic with two or three speakers/educators.

Another bonus was when one of the big nurseries in the state would host participants for a lengthy tour of operations and grounds. Lunch would be part of the day, another opportunity for beneficial networking.

I wish you luck.

I've caught a few tours that way, and they have been educaational. The local landscape group, LANTA, is a guild: You have to be sponsored by a member to get in. Since they aren't my customers, nor my vendors (to date) I've not had much contact with them.

In addition LANTA has a several hundred dollar per year membership fee. Looking at their newsletters, and dipping into the presentations they had at the local Green Show, I'm not impressed.

I love it when a sales rep visits. I get one or two of those per year, and I keep them talking as long as I can. Everyone gives me new ideas.

One issue: I'm unique or nearly so, in that I have a container based operation, not a field based operation. Everyone told me that it won't work in our climate. Some trees are less than pleased with the system, but most do ok.

Couple this with that I go after a different market. The bulk of my sales are small trees. Seedling to #2 pots, mostly to acreage owners. My typical customer buys a pickup load of trees.

Websites for products are a good source of info, but you have to remember that they want to sell you their products.

As far as they go, the land grant universities with their departments of agriculture are informative. Ohio State, Oregon State, and U of Vermont have been particularly helpful.

The US Forestry department has some excellent books on this and that. Propagation methods, nursery layout, equipment. Most of it is targeted at a scale far beyond my one person operation.

You see why I'm looking for forums however.

BTW: I have answers for all 19 questions. Are they the right answers? Maybe. Are they the best answers? Probably not. I'll give my anwers in the next message.

Q1 How do you determine the optimum time release slow release fertilizer for use on Picea glauca grown in a 110 day growing season with average temperatures ranging from 8 to 18 C during the trees active growth period?

A1 My Best guess: Native spruce shut down here by early to mid August. Their growth is finished before then. We are colder than the average 70F used for calculating release. So a 45-60 day release period is adequate. More than this is a waste of money. Spruce is a light feeder, so go at 1/3 of standard dose.

Q2: What is the optimum soil characteristic drain time for large pots (#10-#15) when watered by a 1 gph dripper?

A2. If the soil drains too fast, you end up with a column of wet down the middle. If it is too slow, the soil remains waterlogged too long, and will usually be waterlogged after a hard rain. My current compromise is to 'tune' for a wet spot about 6" across in the top of the pot. Increasing eh spread can be accomplished by putting a chunk of uncoated kraft paper or several sheets of newsprint under the mulch.

Q3: How do I selectively breed wind pollenated trees?

A3: Haven't started this one yet. I know the theory. Damn flowers are too far up. Need a picker truck to do this one.

Q4: How do I effectively recruit workers in a low population area?

A4: At present I have ads running on Indeed and on Kijiji. In addition I put up signs in the local town aimed at high school kids. It's not sufficient.

Q5: How do I control dandelions and other airborne seeds in my pots? (Few herbicides are licensed for use in containers in Canada)

A5: Mulch. I've tried chipped tree waste (power line tree trimming run through a chipper) chipped spruce, wheat straw, leaves, and now am using flax straw. Flax straw remains open after multiple rain and snow events, and is prickly enough to discourage mice. I still get some weeds at the trunk and edge.

Q6: How do you educate customers?

A6: Website helps: (Http://sherwoods-forests.com) It's not designed to sell but to inform. I advertise mostly on kijiji, and tend to go for very long (500-1000+words) ads. Even so, the average customer is here for an hour. Next step is education signage.

Q7. What are effective irrigation systems for the small grower?

A7: At present I'm using a mix of senninger wobble heads for my blocks and 1 gph flag drippers for my larger pots. The latter are non pressure compensating, so lines are always supplied from the top end of the hill. Sessions have to be started manually, as the temperatures and wind makes for very irregular evaporation.

Q8: How do I determine the optimum orientation of a green house for forcing spring bulbs for mother's day?

A8: Cute app for the iphone that superimposes the solar path for a given date on whatever you are looking at with the camera. Since the greatest need for heat is just before dawn, and most of the afternoon you will be venting like crazy, the right orientation is to maximize dawn heating at the start of your growing season. If you plant on spring equinox, the right orientation is NS so one side faces east. If you are planting a month after, you want the long axis to point somewhere to the southeast. I'm not confident in this answer.

Q9: What are the tradeoffs of using recycled pots?

A1. On the plus side:

1. Cheap.
2. Environmentally friendly. (Keeping them out of the landfill)

On the minus side:

1. Potential disease and pest transfer. So far not yet an issue.
2. Cleaning them if you care to.
3. Jamming in stacks. (I have over 25 variants on a #2 pot.)
4. Non-standard 'untidy' appearance on display.

Q10: How do you mix your soil if you don't have an extra $20K kicking around?

A10: At present I use an old silage mixer picked up at the dump. A $500 Princess Auto 9 HP motor, and a thousand bucks worth of welding to mount it on a frame. I can mix 1/2 cubic yard at a time, as long as no more than 1/3 of it is my sandy silty field soil.

Q11: What are good sources for liners in Canada?

A11: So far: Jeffries, PRT, Boreal, PrairieTech, Linnaea, Prairie Christmas Tree Growers Association.

Q12: What is the chilling requirement for white spruce to break dormancy?

A12: This came up when someone wanted a live Christmas tree. If the chilling requirment has not been met, then keeping it inside will do no harm. Put it back outside at the end of the season. If it has been met, then all the buds will drop off if put outside. Thanks to UBC Botany forum, I found out that spruce as a genus vary from 300 to 1500 hours. Not useful. However a frequent weather pattern in Alberta is a February thaw where we will get a couple weeks spring like temperatures -- some years we lose all our snow -- then followed by cold weather in March. So either spruce dormancy break is initiated by day length, or it's long enough to not need to worry about being inside for 2 weeks. So next year we try it with our own tree.

Q13: Where can I find a supplier of Prunus nigra in Canada?

A13: Still open. I have an order for seed from Jeffries.

Q14: What are suitable plum root stocks for grafting in cold climates?

A14: Still open

Q15: What is optimum timing and amount for final irrigation before freezeup to reduce winter damage on various species?

A15: At present I give them a saturated watering after the leaves drop off the poplars. Not convinced this is optimum yet. Too much, and roots have to expell more water as it gets cold to increase the ion density. Too little and top tissues aren't fully hydrated to go into winter.

Q16: What are the tradeoffs between grassed and non-grassed aisles?

A16: I went with grassed. Actually a combination of 9 kinds of grass, dandelion, clover, harebell... I don't want to use enough chemicals to go bare earth.

Q17: How can I modify common procedures to minimize pesticide use?

A17: A few answers/

1. Feed birds year round. They don't each much in summer, but it's there. I use a combination of black oil sunfower seed and grease cakes.
2. Alternate blocks are different genera. This makes a pest work hard to find his next snack spot.
3. Fair amount of wild/semi-wild land in borders. Provide habitat for predator insects.
4. Adjust mowing schedule to maximize clipping weed heads.
5. Use cardboard and flax as weed control in demo gardens.
6. Use flax on top of pots.

This has reduced my Glyphosate use to about 4 years per 10 liter jug.

Q18: How do I deal with porcupines?

A18:: Lee Enfield Mark IV .303

Q19: If I'm using field soil as an ingredient in my potting mix, what is the best way to maintain that soil weed free AND also keep reasonable tilth?

A19: Present theory is to sow with buckwheat. (Germinates as it flying through the air..) Till in after it blooms. In fall harvest dirt for the next season.

We found the easiest way to deal with porcupines in our nursery is by offering salt licks. they are after the salt in buildings, lumber, vehicles, etc, and a lick is an easy to provide, inexpensive alternative. We still have porcupines here, but they are no longer a nusisance nor an expense.

I had ONE porcupine one year (before I got the rifle) that ate $15,000 worth of scots pines. The salt lick, however is a good idea. Lure them to where I can shoot them easily. Might work with hoof rats too. Queue up the hunters to pick them off. Probably illegal.