Weeding in Ledmore Forest Nursery
The images are courtesy of Michael Lawrence of Bankfoot whose grandfather, Sandy Rose, was Forester and Head Forester at Ledmore Forest Nursery from 1950 (when land was acquired) until his retirement in 1969. In 1966 the nearby Strathord Forest was brought under his charge. The year of the photograph is estimated to be around 1957.
Another beautiful action shot of forest nursery weeding action. Following the scarification of the ground and disturbance of the weeds (if hot bright sunshine was in short supply) the work teams resorted to the use of the paraffin pressure torches to burn or singe all the weeds. It is likely that these could only be used on headlands and broad areas without tree seedlings. Note the hand pump on the fuel container to periodically pump up the pressure as the work progressed.
Fuel oils were also used as a weed growth preventative on newly sown seed beds. Hopefully someone will provide the exact prescription but from memory white spirit was over sprayed onto seed beds just as the majority of the tree seedlings survived but the weed seedlings generally died off. A little later when the seedlings were more robust the beds were over sprayed with tractor vaporising oil (TVO) and again the weeds were knocked back for a few weeks.
Only Chalmers Thain (Snr) on the left has been named in this group. The names of the other two workers would be very welcome and any comments.
Note the grey Ferguson 20 tractor working in the back ground.
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