Historical document
Optimum work methods in the nursery potting process (NY98031)
Publication date: April 1, 2001
Delivery Partner: Queensland Horticulture Institute
This is a final research report from Hort Innovation’s historical archives. Please note that as these reports may date back as far as the 1990s, the content and recommendations within them may be superseded by more recent research.
The investigation of potting labour costs had been carried out by a team of researchers from the Queensland Department of Primary Industries in collaboration with the Queensland, New South Wales and Victorian Nursery Industry Associations. All of the investigative work had been carried out on representative nurseries in these states.
The aim of the project had been to identify and recommend methods for improving nursery labour efficiencies in the area of potting up. The project had progressed through stages that resulted in the following major outcomes:
Though research had confirmed that the vast majority of Australian nurseries operated with excessive production labour costs, nurseries displayed a notable lack of motivation and success in attempting to improve their production efficiency. This was because nurseries had no access to information on how they compared with other nurseries in terms of production efficiency. As a result of this:
In order to maximise the benefit of research, the engineering section at DPI was proposing to establish a permanent, full time centre for nursery production research. Nursery industry members and allied manufacturers would be encouraged to use the centre's research data and information for their mutual gain and researchers would be able to continually monitor, investigate and report on all aspects affecting nursery production.
This historical project was a strategic levy investment in the Hort Innovation Nursery Fund
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