Horticulture

Horticulture (Latin: hortus (garden plant) + cultura (culture)) is classically defined as the culture or growing of garden plants. Horticulturists work in plant propagation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic engineering, plant biochemistry, plant physiology, and the storage, processing, and transportation of fruits, berries, nuts, vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs, and turf. They improve crop yield, quality, nutritional value, and resistance to insects, diseases, and environmental stresses. Genetics is also used as a valuable tool in the development of plants that can synthesize chemicals for fighting disease (including cancers).

The Butchart Gardens, British Columbia, Canada.

The study of horticulture

Horticulture involves five areas of study. These areas are floriculture (includes production and marketing of floral crops), landscape horticulture (includes production, marketing and maintenance of landscape plants), olericulture (includes production and marketing of vegetables), pomology (includes production and marketing of fruits), and postharvest physiology (involves maintaining quality and preventing spoilage of horticultural crops).

Horticulturists can work in industry, government, or educational institutions. They can be cropping systems engineers, wholesale or retail business managers, propagators and tissue culture specialists (fruits, vegetables, ornamentals, and turf), crop inspectors, crop production advisors, extension specialists, plant breeders, research scientists, and of course, teachers.

College courses that complement Horticulture are biology, botany, entomology, chemistry, mathematics, genetics, physiology, statistics, computer science, and communications, garden design, planting design. Plant science and horticulture courses include: plant materials, plant propagation, tissue culture, crop production, post-harvest handling, plant breeding, pollination management, crop nutrition, entomology, plant pathology, economics, and business. Some careers in horticultural science require a masters (MS) or doctoral (PhD) degree.

Horticulture takes place in many gardens and plant growth centres. Plants are often grown as seedlings within plant nurseries. Activities in nurseries range from preparing seeds and cuttings to growing fully mature plants. These are often sold or transferred to ornamental gardens or market gardens.

Cool climate greenhouse, a great deal of horticultural practices are carried out by home gardeners

Community Gardens are a common place to find horticultural practices in place

Horticulture and anthropology

The origins of horticulture lie in the transition of human communities from nomadic hunter gatherers to sedentary or semi-sedentary horticultural communities, cultivating a variety of crops on a small scale around their dwellings or in specialized plots at some remove (such as the "milpa" or maize field of mesoamerican cultures). In forest areas such horticulture is often carried out in swiddens ("slash and burn" areas). A characteristic of horticultural communities is that useful trees are often to be found planted around communities or specially retained from the natural ecosytem.

Horticultural communities may be distinguished from agricultural ones by (1) the small scale of the cultivation, using small plots of mixed crops rather than large field of single crops (2) the use of a variety of crops, often including fruit trees (3) the encouragement of useful native plants alongside direct cultivation (4) continued use of other forms of livelihood. In pre-contact North America the semi-sedentary horticultural communities of the eastern woodlands (growing maize, squash and sunflower) contrasted markedly with the mobile hunter gatherer communities of the Plains people. In central America, Mayan horticulture involved augmentation of the forest with useful trees such as papaya, avocado, cacao, ceiba and sapodilla. In the cornfields, multiple crops were grown such as beans (using cornstalks as supports), squash, pumpkins and chili peppers, in some cultures tended mainly or exclusively by women.

See also

• Agriculture
• Aquaponics
• Arborsculpture
• Espalier
• Geoponic
• History of gardening
• Planting design
• Royal Horticultural Society
• Viticulture

External links

• ASHS - American Society for Horticultural Science
• ISHS - International Society for Horticultural Science
• Welsh College of Horticulture

• International Master of Horticultural Science [1]
• Horticultural crop names and alternate names
• Ohio State WebGarden - Horticulture resources
• The British Library - finding information on the horticulture industry
• HORTIVAR - The FAO Horticulture Cultivars Performance Database
• Royal Horticultural Society - United Kingdon
• Horticultural/Floral Design & Home Gardens