Studies were conducted in Dhankuta district/a find the real situation of citrus nursery business in the
district during March-April, 2012. During the studies, jive n~~rseries were selected and similar sets of
questionnaires were prepared and given to fill to the nursery owners. Direct field observation,
measurement, personnel communication and secondary data were used during the study. From the
study it was revealed that 11 nurseries were producing saplings in Dlwnkuta, out of which six
nurseries were legally operated Most of them were producing grafted saplings while others producing
both grafted sapling and seedling. All the nurseries werefozmd to be located above 1000 meter above
mean sea level. The shoot-tip metl?od of grafting was found to be the most common method of grafting
onto trifoliate orange seedling rootstock at ve1y low height ranging from 6 em to 15 cm due to the poor
growth of the seedling. Most of the nurseries were maintaining the mother stock inside the screen
house but scions were taken from the open field mother plant. Major problems of(aising mother slock
inside I he screen house were high occurrence of citrus scales, aphids, white flies and sooty mould. The
age of sapling during selling time was found to be 6 month in most of the nurseries indicating high
demand of the sapling. Hardly, some saplings remained for the next year to sell. The income of the
citrus nurseries ranged from NRs. 300,000 to 660,575 per annum. Leaf miner, scale insect, lemon dog.
twig borers were the important insect pests while damping-off, powdery mildew, root rot, sooty mold
and twig blight were the major diseases of/he nurseries.

Studies were conducted in Dhankuta district/a find the real situation of citrus nursery business in the
district during March-April, 2012. During the studies, jive n~~rseries were selected and similar sets of
questionnaires were prepared and given to fill to the nursery owners. Direct field observation,
measurement, personnel communication and secondary data were used during the study. From the
study it was revealed that 11 nurseries were producing saplings in Dlwnkuta, out of which six
nurseries were legally operated Most of them were producing grafted saplings while others producing
both grafted sapling and seedling. All the nurseries werefozmd to be located above 1000 meter above
mean sea level. The shoot-tip metl?od of grafting was found to be the most common method of grafting
onto trifoliate orange seedling rootstock at ve1y low height ranging from 6 em to 15 cm due to the poor
growth of the seedling. Most of the nurseries were maintaining the mother stock inside the screen
house but scions were taken from the open field mother plant. Major problems of(aising mother slock
inside I he screen house were high occurrence of citrus scales, aphids, white flies and sooty mould. The
age of sapling during selling time was found to be 6 month in most of the nurseries indicating high
demand of the sapling. Hardly, some saplings remained for the next year to sell. The income of the
citrus nurseries ranged from NRs. 300,000 to 660,575 per annum. Leaf miner, scale insect, lemon dog.
twig borers were the important insect pests while damping-off, powdery mildew, root rot, sooty mold
and twig blight were the major diseases of/he nurseries.