Summary:

Ornamental nursery in Poland has been developing vary well in the resent years. It is the most success sector within floriculture or even in horticulture at all. Area of production grew up to 6747 ha and the value of production in 2011 was animated on 1 billion PLN. Irrigation is one of the most important factors with great importance on production. Therefore it is important to optimize the ways of using water resources in the process of nursery development. It should be related to not only modern and economical irrigation systems but also with the introduction of rational criteria of irrigation plants grown in the field and containers. Optimizing of watering plants in nursery, using the systems that save water and money should be more important since then. The aim of the study based on questionnaire and authors on visits in the nurseries was to estimate watering systems in nurseries, source of water and amount of water used for irrigation according to holding size, localization and association in producers organizations. In the study 612 holdings were examined mostly by the e-mail survey, but some of them also by authors own visits what was very valuable for this research. Area of plant production in this nurseries (field and container) was 2612 ha, what is 39% of whole nursery area in Poland in 2011. Results shows that overhad sprinkles irrigation is basic watering plants systems, and the most important source of water are deep wells. Amount of water used for irrigation by surveyed holdings was over 1,6 mln m3 of water in 2011. Unfortunately, more than 95% of nurseryman not associated in producer's organization and 72 % associated, regulate the amount of water and the frequency of irrigation without any reliable criteria.