Derek Moore: Growing Trees In Containers

Talk by Derek Moore on growing trees in containers. In Australia the vast proportion of planted trees spend some part of their early lives in a nursery environment in a rigid plastic pot of some type. Because trees are very long lived, it can take years for issues related to poor quality root systems to become apparent. Often it isn’t realised that the problem was poor nursery production practices which resulted in a root system that doomed the tree even before it was planted.

Derek’s a retired plant scientist who’s particularly interested in all aspects of tree biology, especially the challenges faced by urban trees. He spent 12 years researching the impact of different containers on the root systems of a select range of different Australian native tree species at the Burnley campus of the University of Melbourne while lecturing in botany and horticulture at Charles Sturt University (Wagga Wagga).