is the industry and science of plant
cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the
planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and
conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation
, plant breeding
, and plant physiology
. The work particularly involves
. Horticulturists work to improve crop
yield, quality, nutritional
resistance to insects
, and environmental stresses. Horticulture
usually refers to gardening on a smaller scale, while agriculture
refers to the large-scale cultivation of crops.The word is
composite, from two words, horti, meaning grass, originating in the
Greek χορτον, meaning the same (grass) and the word culture.
The study of horticulture
Horticulture involves 8 areas of study, which can be grouped into
two broad sections - ornamentals and edibles:
- Arboriculture is the study of, and
the selection, planting, care, and removal of, individual trees,
shrubs, vines, and other perennial woody plants.
- Floriculture includes the
production and marketing of floral crops.
- Landscape horticulture
includes the production, marketing and maintenance of landscape
- Olericulture includes the
production and marketing of vegetables.
- Pomology includes the production and
marketing of fruits.
- Viticulture includes the production
and marketing of grapes.
- Postharvest physiology
involves maintaining the quality of and preventing the spoilage of
Horticulturists can work in industry, government or educational
institutions or private collections. 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 advisers, extension
specialists, plant breeders, research scientists, and of course,
Disciplines which complement horticulture include biology
, computer science
, and communications
, garden design
, planting design
and horticulture courses include: plant materials,
, tissue culture,
crop production, post-harvest
, plant breeding
, plant pathology
, economics, and business.
Some careers in horticultural science require a masters (MS) or
doctoral (PhD) degree.
Horticulture is practiced in many gardens, "plant growth centres"
and 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.
Horticulture and anthropology
Horticulture has a very long history. The study and science of
horticulture dates all the way back to the times of Alexander the
Great, and has been going on ever since, with present day
horticulturists such as Freeman S. Howlett, the revolutionary
horticulturist. 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 visited occasionally during migrations from one area to the
next. (such as the "milpa
" or maize field of
cultures). In forest areas
such horticulture is often carried out in swiddens
" areas). A characteristic of horticultural communities is
that useful trees are often to be found planted around communities
or specially retained from the natural ecosystem.
Horticulture sometimes differs from agriculture in (1) a smaller
scale of cultivation, using small plots of mixed crops rather than
large field of single crops (2) the cultivation of a wider variety
of crops, often including fruit trees. 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
Central America, Maya
involved augmentation of the forest with useful trees such as
. In the cornfields, multiple crops were
grown such as beans (using cornstalks as supports), squash,
pumpkins and chilli peppers, in some cultures tended mainly or
exclusively by women.
Image:Butchart gardens.JPG|The Butchart
Columbia, CanadaImage:Cool Greenhouse.jpg|Cool climate
greenhouse extend the growing seasonImage:Community Garden,
gardens often have several horticultural practices in
- C K Adams, Principles of Horticulture
Butterworth-Heinemann; 5th edition (11 Aug 2008), ISBN