Reproducción y cultivo de plantas nativas de la Patagonia para la restauración: una experiencia de trabajo en el vivero del Jardín Botánico de Isla Victoria (2012-2020).

Abstract

This document describes a pre-professional internship in the multiplication and cultivation of native species, conducted during a work experience period from 2012 to 2020 at the "Ing. Agr. Alberto Suero" Forestry Center, Nursery of the Isla Victoria Botanical Garden in Nahuel Huapi National Park (NHNP), to which I belong as a contracted agent. Native forest seedlings are produced for ecological restoration purposes. Throughout the internship, numerous important data were collected for proper crop management, such as the selection of seed specimens, locations and dates of seed harvesting of native plants with conservation value, their conditioning and storage, pre-germination treatments, sowing dates, types of substrates used for the different cultivation stages, and the specific requirements and development times of the different species. Ecosystem restoration is a process that reverses degradation, through which the natural environmental functions of a site are recovered. Some of the tasks involved in ecological restoration include: surveying native species and the characteristics of the site to be regenerated; propagating plants for reforestation with native plants; and controlling invasive exotic species, among other actions. Native species nurseries have become strategic and necessary for projects to restore degraded environments, for reforestation, and for environmental education (Lacoretz et al., 2021).