Agrostology class notes- 7

Introductory Agroforestry
EXERCISE 7: CULTIVATION AND NURSERY PRACTICES FOR ROBINIA
Robinia pseudoacacia Linn.
Common Name: Robinia, Black locust
Fig.1. Robinia pseudoacacia tree
Botanical name : Robinia pseudoacacia Linn.

Common name : Black Locust
Family : Leguminosae
Sub family : Papillinioideae
Description
It is a medium sized thorny, deciduous tree

Full grown trees have rough brown dark grey longitudinally furrowed bark
The young shoots are smooth, purplish brown, armed without triangular spines in pairs, which
persist for some years
Distribution
It is native to North America, from where it has been introduced to France, Hungary, Belgium,
Southern Russia, Italy and Balkan states
In India it was first introduced in Himachal Pradesh in 1890 and later to Jammu and Kashmir in
1919
In has performed well in outer Himalayas between 1800-3000m and in the inner Himalayas at
elevations as low as 1050m in Himachal Pradesh
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Site factors
Climate
Temperature - Maximum 29.4°C Minimum -3.8°C

Rainfall - 700-1750mm
Altitude - 1500-2000m
Soil
It grows on wide variety of soils

Favors lime-derived soils having pH between 4.6 and 8.2
It is a versatile colonizer
For best growth it requires a deep, rich gravelly, well drained loamy soils and avoids wet, heavy
and stiff soils
Excessively dry soils and soils with slow drainage are not suitable for its growth
Phenology
Leaf fall - September-November

Leaf renewal - March-April
Flowering - April-May
Fruiting - June-July
Fruit ripening - September-October
Silvicultural characters
It is strong light demander

It is intolerant of competition
It is frost hardy
Young seedlings suffers from frost injury in first season
Mature trees are drought hardy
The tree is wind firm under ordinary wind velocity
It coppices freely
Root suckers produced abundantly from its superficial roots which run up to 12 or 15m from the
parent tree
Root suckers are produced after an age of 3 to 4 years
Regeneration
Natural
Seedling regeneration is absent in plantations

Root suckers and coppice shoots
Seeds falling on fresh, moist mineral soil before the winter snow, germinate in spring and seedlings
may establish
Artificial
The species can be propagated by planting out nursery raised seedlings

Direct sowing does not useful
Seed collection and storage
Abundant seed produce every 1-2 years

The tree starts seeding at an early age of about 2-3years and commercial quantities of seed are
available from the age of 8years onwards
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The ripened pod should be collected from October to December
One kilogram contains 60000 to 80000 seeds
Pods dried in the sun, thrashed and winnowed to obtain clean seed.
About 35 to 77 seeds weigh one gram
The seed can be stored for one year in airtight containers at room temperature without any
appreciable loss in viability
Nursery technique
The seed requires pre-sowing treatment which may consist of immersion in H2SO4 or dipping in
hot water or soaking in cold water.
The treatment of the seed with either H2SO4 or HNO3 or hydrogen peroxide for two minutes is
reported to injure the seed (Chandra and Sharma, 1976).
Hot water treatment, which is normally adopted, consists of soaking the seed in cooling boiled
water for 2 to 5 minutes and allowed to soak at room temperature for 8 to 10 hours (Muthoo and
Kango, 1965; Chandra and Sharma, 1976).
Soaking of seed in water at room temperature for about 24 hours has been found to be satisfactory.
Sowing is done in the nursery beds in lines about 20 cm apart.
The spacing between the seeds in the lines is about 5 cm, and the depth of sowing is about 1.5 cm.
Sowing is normally done in March in irrigated nurseries.
Late sowings done in June-July normally give poor results as the seedlings suffer from damping off
as a result of monsoon rains at the time of germination.
In Kashmir valley where spring rains are good, March-April sowing may suffer from damping off
and the sowing done in May gives better results (Muthoo and Kango, 1965).
Under rain-fed conditions, the sowings are done in September as the seedlings raised from sowings
done in July or August may suffer from damping off.
Germination starts in about 7 days and takes about 10 days to complete.
The seedlings are transplanted into the nursery beds in the following January-February and are
grown in transplant beds for one year.
A germination percentage of about 70-85 can be expected for the seed treated to soften the seed coat
before sowing
Weeding is necessary to protect the young seedlings from being smothered by weeds The seedlings
are thinned out to a spacing of about 10 cm between lines, when these have attained an average
height of 5 cm.
Planting technique
The plants from March sowings become fit for planting the following December-January when they
attain height of 1-2 m.
September sowings do not, however, produce plants of sufficient height in the following winter and
they become plantable during the next winter.
Planting out is done in pits of 30 cm3 dug in advance.
Spacing adopted is generally 2.5×2.5 m for compact block planting and about 4 m for line planting
around agricultural field.
A spacing of 2×2 m is adopted for comparatively poorer sites.
Bush cutting is done at the time of planting.
Naked root plants are planted out. Sometimes root suckers are also used for planting
The taproot is cut and the lateral roots are pruned so as to accommodate the root system of the
plants in 30 cm3 pits.
The plants are bundled and the roots wrapped in gunny bags during transport.
Care is taken to ensure that the roots are not injured during planting.
The plantation areas are closed to grazing, to protect the plants against browsing.
Economic importance
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Black locust is valued for leaf-fodder, timber and as honey bee flora.
The trees are very heavily lopped for fodder as the leaves are rich in crude protein, calcium and
phosphorus.
Crude protein, phosphorus and tannin contents decrease while crude fibre, total ash and calcium
contents increase as the leaves mature.
The palatability of the leaves is good and it improves as the tannin content decreases with the
maturity of leaves.
Total digestible nutrients in the case of leaves lopped in September-October were higher than those
of leaves lopped in June-July.
Late (September-October) feeding of leaves is better than feeding them in the early part of the year.
***** *****
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Introductory Agroforestry

EXERCISE 7: CULTIVATION AND NURSERY PRACTICES FOR ROBINIA

Robinia pseudoacacia Linn.

Common Name: Robinia, Black locust

Fig.1. Robinia pseudoacacia tree

Botanical name : Robinia pseudoacacia Linn.

It is a medium sized thorny, deciduous tree

Temperature - Maximum 29.4°C Minimum -3.8°C

It grows on wide variety of soils

Leaf fall - September-November

It is strong light demander

Seedling regeneration is absent in plantations

The species can be propagated by planting out nursery raised seedlings

Seed collection and storage

Abundant seed produce every 1-2 years

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