Established: 1990
History: The nursery was built in stages since then on the FitzGerald family farm in Co. Kilkenny Ireland. The farmland has been farmed by the FitzGerald family since the 1700's and was a typical traditional farm of the time containing approximately 100 acres.
In the centre of the nursery activity is a well preserved neolithic ring fort or in Gaelic (Rath). This is the remains of what was probably the first agricultural activity by the Celts on this farmland. Patrick FitzGerald diversified from the traditional Cattle, Dairy and vegetable enterprises to focus mainly on nursery production. He established the nursery and specialized in the production of young plants for sale to growers in Ireland at first and now 18 countries around the world.
Description: FitzGerald Nurseries sell young plants in 35 countries as plugs, liners and food crop mother plants produced from tissue culture explants. the company is interested in developing volume contract production in each of these categories. From simple product development and marketing starting in 1994 the company is now to the forefront in developing exciting plant ranges for the future, including newly introduced vegetables to both Agricultural and hobby market applications.
In December 2004 FitzGerald Nurseries took over Plant Technology Ltd Irelands only commercial plant tissue culture laboratory. With a research staff team of 5 and production staff of 10 the laboratory now produces exclusively for FitzGerald Nurseries and takes on contract propagation for select clients. The focus of the laboratory is on novel and licensed plant varieties with a very special emphasis on food crop development and maintenance of its own genebanks.
During 2005 further work on formalizing the structure of the nursery product development was undertaken. In 2009 planting has begun on the new trial and display gardens in 2013 more research emphasis were put on venetable crop development. In 2019 Beotanics sister company to FitzGerald took over specialist R&D activities and food product development investigations for the group and launched a new plan for the future of the company. In 2020 the company has added a 2000 m2 innovation and product development greenhouse and a Plant Health Quarentine greenhouse making a large financial commitment to the future export development of its food crops all this despite some challenges of COVID-19.