Dictionary:

horticulture

  (hôr'tĭ-kŭl'chər)

1. The science or art of cultivating fruits, vegetables, flowers, or ornamental plants.
2. The cultivation of a garden.

[Latin hortus, garden + (AGRI)CULTURE.]

Originally garden cultivation, this now refers to the intensive production of fruit, vegetables, and ornamental plants.

For more information on horticulture, visit Britannica.com.

Horticulture, literally garden culture, is a part of crop agriculture that also includes agronomy and forestry. By tradition, horticulture deals with garden crops such as fruits, nuts, vegetables, culinary herbs and spices, beverage crops, and medicinals, as well as ornamental plants. Agronomy is involved with grains, pasture grasses and forages, oilseeds, fiber crops, and industrial crops such as sugarcane, while forestry is involved with trees grown for timber and fiber as well as the incidental wildlife. The edible horticultural crops are used entirely as human food and are often utilized in the living state and thus highly perishable. In contrast, edible agronomic crops are often utilized in the nonliving state, are highly processed, are often used for animal feed, and usually contain a high percentage of dry matter. The precise distinction between horticultural and agronomic crops is traditional. In general, horticultural crops are intensively cultivated and warrant a large input of capital, labor, and technology per unit area of land, but in modern agriculture, horticultural crops may be extensively grown while many agronomic crops are now intensively cultivated. Many crops are claimed by more than one discipline. Horticulture is practiced in large agricultural operations, in small farm enterprises, and in home gardens.

Horticultural Arts

Horticulture is associated with a number of intensive practices that collectively make up the horticultural arts. These include various propagation techniques incorporating special plant structures such as bulbs, corms, or runners; the use of layers or cuttings; budding and grafting; and micropropagation involving tissue culture. Cultural practices include soil preparation, direct planting or transplanting; fertilization; weed, disease, and pest control; training and pruning; the use of controlled environments such as greenhouses or plastic tunnels; applications of chemical growth regulators; various harvest and handling methods; and various postharvest treatments to extend shelf life. Other practices associated with horticulture are breeding and genetic techniques for crop improvement, marketing methods, and food processing. Ornamental horticulture, not considered here, includes added practices associated with landscape architecture and the floral arts. While horticulture is an ancient art with many of its practices empirically derived, present-day horticultural arts are intimately associated with science, so that modern horticultural science is one of the most advanced parts of agriculture. Recently some horticultural growers have attempted to reduce or even eliminate reliance on inorganic fertilizers and pesticides through the incorporation of ecologically based practices (integrated crop management).

Horticultural Food Crops

Horticultural food crops include an enormous array of species that are grouped in various ways.

Fruits. Fruits of woody perennial plants have long been prized for sources of refreshment, for their delightful flavors and aromas, and as nourishing foods. Fruit crops can be defined as temperate, subtropical, and tropical depending on their temperature requirements. Temperate fruits are deciduous (drop their leaves in the cold period) and undergo dormancy requiring a certain amount of low temperatures (chilling period) before growth is resumed in the spring. Subtropical fruits require a very short chilling period. Tropical fruits are usually evergreen and are extremely cold-sensitive. Within these groupings fruit crops are usually grouped by taxonomic affinity. The temperate fruits include the pome fruits (apple, pear, quince, medlar), stone fruits (apricot, cherry, peach and its smooth-skin variant the nectarine, and plum), vine fruits (grape and kiwifruit), and small or bush fruits (strawberry; blueberry, cranberry, and lingonberry; brambles such as blackberry, raspberry, and various hybrids; currants and gooseberries). The subtropical fruits include citrus (citron, grapefruit, the tropical pomelo, sweet orange, lemon, lime, mandarins, and various hybrids such as the tangor or tangelo); and fruits associated with Mediterranean climates (avocado, cactus pear, carob, fig, loquat, persimmon, pomegranate). There are hundreds of tropical fruits, of which the most important are banana and plantain, mango, papaya, and pineapple, but there are hundreds of others with regional interest, including acerola, akee, carambola, cherimoya, durian, guava, litchi, mangosteen, passion fruit, rambutan, sapodilla, and soursop.

Nuts. The important tree nuts that enter into international trade include almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, chestnuts, hazelnuts, macadamias, pistachios, pecans and hickories, and walnuts.

Beverage crops. Beverage crops include the subtropical crops—coffee, tea, and maté—and the tropical cacao used for cocoa and the confection chocolate.

Vegetables. Vegetables are typically herbaceous (softstemmed) plants in which various parts are used as food, including roots, tubers, leaves, fruit, or seed. There are various groupings based on the part consumed and taxonomic affinity. Vegetables include the root crops (beet, carrot, cassava, celeriac, dasheen, horseradish, parsnip, potato, salsify, turnip, radish, rutabaga, and sweet potato, as well as some little-known Andean tubers such as oca, mashua or anu, and ulluco, and root crops such as arracacha, maca, and yacon); bulb or corm crops including the pungent alliums (chive, garlic, leek, onion, shallots, and chive); salad or leafy crops (arugula or rocket, celery, chicory, cress, endive, lettuce, parsley); cole crops or crucifers (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, Chinese cabbage, and various Asian types such as bok choy); potherbs or greens (chard, collards, dandelion, celeriac, kale, mustard, orach, spinach, New Zealand spinach); solanaceous fruits (eggplant, sweet and hot peppers, tomato and husk tomato), cucurbits, also known as melon or vine crops (chayote, cucumber, muskmelon, pumpkin, squash, watermelon); legumes or pulse crops in which the seed is consumed (adzuki bean, broad bean, chickpea, common bean, cowpea, lima bean, mung bean, rice beans, tepary bean, urdbean, garden pea, and pigeon pea). Some vegetables are perennial (artichoke, asparagus, Jerusalem artichoke, rhubarb, sea kale). Some agronomic crops are consumed as a vegetable in various stages, and these types are included as horticultural crops. Examples include sweet corn (the immature ears of a sweet type of maize), immature vegetable soybean or edamame, and the young leaves of amaranth.

Culinary herbs and spices. Aromatic plants used for culinary purposes are called herbs when they are temperate species and spices when they are tropical. Examples include allspice, anise, basil, capsicums, caraway, cardamom, cinnamon, chervil, clove, coriander, cumin, dill, fennel, funugreek, garlic, ginger, laurel, marjoram, mint, mustard, nutmeg and mace, onion, organum, parsley, pepper, poppy seed, rosemary, saffron, sage, savory, sesame, star anise, tarragon, thyme, and turmeric.

Horticultural Societies

The field of horticulture has a great many organizations and societies devoted to all phases of horticulture, including amateurs and fanciers, growers and handlers, researchers, and academics. There are plant societies devoted to individual or groups of crops, trade organizations devoted to the production and marketing of individual horticultural crops, and scientific societies devoted to scientific research. In the United States, the principal society devoted to the science of horticulture is the American Society for Horticultural Science (founded 1903) with offices in Alexandria, Virginia. The society publishes three scholarly journals as well as books, and conducts annual meetings. Examples of other scientific societies in the United States include the American Pomological Society, devoted to fruits and nuts, and the American Potato Society. Growers of horticultural crops are also organized in state societies. Many countries have a national scientific society devoted to horticulture. The International Society for Horticultural Science located in Leuven, Belgium, sponsors international horticultural congresses every four years.

Horticultural Education

Horticulture is a recognized part of the curricula in agriculture worldwide. In the United States many land grant universities have horticulture departments devoted to undergraduate education leading to the B.S. degree. Most of these departments provide advanced training leading to the M.S. and Ph.D. degree. However, since the 1990s there has been a trend for horticulture and agronomy departments to combine into either a Crop Science or Plant Science department. A number of schools give two-year programs leading to associate degrees.

Crop Propagation

Horticultural crops are multiplied sexually (seed propagation) or asexually (clonal or vegetative propagation). Many vegetables and herbaceous (soft-stemmed) ornamentals are seed-propagated (beans, tomato, petunia). However, some seed is produced by nonsexual means (apomixis—bluegrass, many citrus, mango), and plants produced by this type of seed are considered vegetatively or clonally propagated. Clonal propagation occurs naturally in many horticultural crops through special vegetative structures such as the tubers of potato, the runners of strawberry, the cloves (corms) of garlic, or the bulbs of tulip. Clonal propagation can be achieved by cuttings, where pieces of the plant regenerate missing parts. Thus, shoot cuttings regenerate roots (grape), root cuttings regenerate shoots (sweet potato), and leaf cuttings regenerate shoots and roots (African violet). Most fruit crops are propagated using grafting techniques where plants are physically joined together, in which the combination of parts achieves physical union through tissue regeneration to grow as a single plant. The part of the combination that provides the root is called the stock; the added piece is called the scion. When the scion consists of a single bud only, the process is referred to as budding. A modern form of vegetatative propagation is called micropropagation and involves tissue culture—the aseptic growth of cells, tissues, or organs in artificial media.

This technique permits very rapid propagation and is widely used for many foliage plants. It is commonly used to produce disease-free stock of strawberry, which are later propagated in the field by runners.

Plant Domestication

The greatest advances in horticulture, the selection and domestication of our useful crops, were made in prehistory by farmers unknown and unsung. The basic techniques of horticulture were well established by ancient cultures in antiquity (5000 to 1500 years ago). In fact, a complete record of horticulture practices is illustrated in the tomb artwork of ancient Egypt. The horticultural technology of antiquity includes basic propagation techniques (seed handling, grafting, use of cuttings); planting and cultivation (plowing, seed bed preparation, weeding), irrigation technology involving water storage, lifting, and channeling; storage technology such as granaries; fertilization and crop rotation; plant selection; basic food technology (fermentation technology in bread-and winemaking, drying, and pickling), and even the beginning of protected culture (the Romans had a primitive greenhouse using mica for cucumber forcing).

The Morrill Acts

The land-grant universities trace their origins to the Morrill Act signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862, a famous piece of legislation sponsored by Justin Smith Morrill of Massachusetts. Monies from the sale of public lands (30,000 acres for each of its Senate and House members) were to be used as a trust fund to endow a college where practical education in agriculture and engineering would be emphasized. The Agricultural Experiment Stations associated with the land-grant colleges trace to legislation (Hatch Act of 1887) sponsored by William H. Hatch of Missouri. In 1890, the Second Morrill Act was passed and provided direct annual appropriations and forbade racial discrimination in admission to colleges receiving the funds. States were allowed to escape this provision if separate institutions were maintained and a number of the "1890 colleges" in various states open to African Americans became known as "black colleges."

Bibliography

Bailey, L. H. 1914. The Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. New York: Macmillan, 1914.

Bailey, L. H., Ethel Zoe Bailey, and the Staff of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium. Hortus Third: A Concise Dictionary of Plants Cultivated in the United States and Canada. New York: Macmillan, 1976.

Brewster, James L. Onions and Other Vegetable Alliums. New York: CABI, 1994.

Brickell, Christopher, and David Joyce. The American Horticultural Society Pruning and Training. New York: DK Publishing, 1996.

Davidson, Harold, Roy Mecklenburg, and Curtis Peterson. Nursery Management: Administration and Culture. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 2000.

Davies, Frederick S., and L. Gene Albrigo. Citrus. New York: CABI, 1994.

Decoteau, Dennis R. Vegetable Crops. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 2000.

Dole, John M., and Harold F. Wilkins. Floriculture: Principles and Species. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1999.

Everett, Thomas H., ed. The New York Botanical Garden Illustrated Encyclopedia of Horticulture. New York: Garland, 1981.

Galleta, Gene J., David Glenn Himelrick, and Lynda E. Chandler. Small Fruit Crop Management. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1990.

Harris, Richard Wilson, James R. Clark, and Nelda P. Matheny. Arboriculture: Integrated Management of Landscape Trees, Shrubs, and Vines. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1999.

Hartmann, Hudson T., et al. Plant Propagation: Principles andPractices. 6th ed. Upper Saddle, River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1997.

Huxley, Anthony, ed. The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening. New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 1999.

Janick, Jules. Horticultural Reviews. New York: Wiley, 1983 to present.

Janick, Jules. Horticultural Science. 4th ed. New York: Freeman, 1986.

Janick, Jules, et al. Plant Science: An Introduction to World Crops. 3d ed. San Francisco: Freeman, 1981.

Morton, Julia Frances. Fruits of Warm Climates. Edited by Curtis F. Dowling. Miami, Fla., and Winterville, N.C.: Morton, 1987.

Nakasone, Henry Y., and Robert E. Paull. Tropical Fruits. New York: CABI, 1998.

Parry, John W. Spices: Morphology, Histology, Chemistry. 2nd ed. 2 vols. New York: Chemical Publishing, 1969.

Robinson, Richard W. Cucurbits. New York: CABI, 1997.

Vaughan, J. G., and Catherine A. Geissler. The New Oxford Book of Food Plants. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Westwood, Melvin N. Temperate-Zone Pomology: Physiology andCulture. 3d ed. Portland, Ore.: Timber Press, 1993.

K. C. Willson. Coffee, Cocoa and Tea. New York: CABI, 1999.

—Jules Janick

The science of cultivating garden plants.

The cultivation of plants for ornament or food.

• Blooms and Bees Tips and news on gardening and more.

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Horticulture (Latin: hortus (garden) + cultura (culture)) is the culture or growing of garden plants. Horticulture as classically defined is the subdivision of agriculture dealing in gardening, in contrast to agronomy, which deals with field crops and the production of grains and forage,^[1] and forestry which deals with forest trees and products related to them.^[2] 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 phytochemicals for pharmaceutical use.

The study of horticulture

Part of a series on Horticulture and Gardening
Gardening
Gardening • Garden • Botanical garden • Arboretum • Botany • Plant
Horticulture
Horticulture • Agriculture • Urban agriculture • City farm • Organic farming • Herb farm • Hobby farm • Intercropping • Farm
Customs
Harvest festival • Thanksgiving • History of agriculture
Plant protection
Phytopathology • Pesticide • Weed control

Horticulture involves six areas of study, which can be grouped into two broad sections - ornamentals and edibles:

• Arboriculture the study and selection, planting, care, and removal of individual trees, shrubs, vines, and other perennial woody plants.
• 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)
• 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.

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^[3]). In forest areas such horticulture is often carried out in swiddens ("slash and burn" areas)^[4]. A characteristic of horticultural communities is that useful trees are often to be found planted around communities or specially retained from the natural ecosystem.

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, Maya 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 ^[5].

Gallery

The Butchart Gardens, British Columbia, Canada

Cool climate greenhouses extend the growing season

Community gardens often have several horticultural practices in use

References

See also

• Aquaponics
• Arborsculpture
• Espalier
• Geoponic
• History of gardening
• Plant physiology
• Planting design
• Royal Horticultural Society
• Viticulture
• Journal of applied horticulture

External links

• ASHS - American Society for Horticultural Science
• ISHS - International Society for Horticultural Science
• 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 Kingdom
• horticultureresearch.net - The Journal of Applied Horticulture

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - havebrug, gartneri

Nederlands (Dutch)
tuinbouw, tuinbouwkunde

Français (French)
n. - horticulture

Deutsch (German)
n. - Gartenbau

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - φυτοκομία, κηπευτική, κηπουρική

Italiano (Italian)
orticoltura

Português (Portuguese)
n. - horticultura (f) (Agr.)

Русский (Russian)
садоводство

Español (Spanish)
n. - horticultura

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - trädgårdsodling, hortikultur

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
园艺

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 園藝

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 원예, 원예학

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 園芸

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) البستنه أو الجنانه, علم أو فن زراعه الاشجار المثمرة والخضر والزهور ونباتات الزينه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮גננות‬

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