Horticulture

Photo courtesy of Mississippi State UniversityOpens in new window Etymologically, the word horticulture was first used in the 1600s. It is derived from two latin words: hortus, which means garden, and cultura, which means cultivation. Therefore, in its strictest sense, horticulture means “cultivated garden,” or more commonly, “culture of garden plants.”

What is Horticulture?

Just How Important Is Horticulture?

The importance of horticulture is so significant that it impacts us all every day, day in and day out. Indeed, it would be nearly impossible to go through a single day without horticulture influencing our lives. Try to picture a day in the life of an average citizen without horticulture — what would it mean? It's simple! It would mean:

• No orange juice for breakfast, no strawberries on your cerereal, no blueberry muffins.
• No flowers on the table, no Monet or van Gogh prints framed on the wall.
• No shrubbery or lawn to enhance the aesthetics and value of your home (did you know that landscaping enhances the value of a home by as much as 20%?).
• No fruits or vegetables to enrich your diet (diseases such as scurvy and nightblindness would be rampant because of a lack of vitamins C and A).
• No alternatives to cereals as sources of the basic needs for calories and protein, since potatoes, cassava, beans, and peas would be unavailable.
• No golf courses for your leisure time, no sports-turfs for football, soccer, croquet, and lawn tennis.
• No coffee breaks, no chocolate bars, no afternoon tea!

Horticulture is a field of study in which career opportunities abound; in fact, recent indications from several sources suggest that there are many career openings available for graduates of baccalaureate programs in horticulture.

Entrepreneurial opportunities include owning and managing horticulture businesses such as orchards and vegetable farms, nurseries, floral shops, and landscape businesses.

Horticulture Differs from Agronomy and Forestry

Horticulture is a branch of agriculture that is different from agronomy and forestry for the following reasons:

1. In general, horticulture requires more intensive management and higher labor inputs than the other branches. In horticulture the individual plant is important. For example, the street or landscape tree has a much greater value than a single tree in the middle of the forest, and that street or landscape tree receives much more intensive care, such as pruning and fertilization.

1. Comparison of a horticultural crop such as strawberries and an agronomic crop such as wheat is also appropriate. Each strawberry has value, unlike the individual plant in a field of wheat. It is not uncommon to see a farmer pack his or her truck onto the field of wheat so that a few hundred plants are crushed. That would be inconceivable on a field of strawberries because each strawberry plant is too valuable.

2. Horticulture offers a higher gross return per unit area per unit of time. A good greenhouse grower can obtain total sales of over $20.00 per square foot ($215/square meter) of bench space per year.
   
   This profit level can be accomplished through intensity of production and careful scheduling of crops to take advantage of the entire 365-day year. If that grower has about an acre (0.4 hectare) of production, this translates to between $800,000 and $1,000,000 worth of sales a year. Certainly that is intensive production and a very high value crop!

The purpose for growing the crop often determines into what commodity area or field of study it is placed. For example, Kentucky bluegrass grown as a forage or pasture crop is considered an agronomic crop, whereas Kentucky bluegrass in a lawn is considered horticultural. A maple grown for its wood is considered under forestry, whereas a maple grown as a shade tree is considered a horticultural plant.

Branches of Horticulture

Within horticulture there are several branches, divisions, or topic areas. These include:

1.   Olericulture

The growing and study of vegetables.

2.   Pomology

The growing and study of fruits and nuts (from Pomona the Roman goddess of fruit trees).

3.   Viticulture

The growing and study of grapes or vines. Vitis is Latin for vine, hence viticulture is vine culture. Viticulture may be included under pomology.

4.   Floriculture

The growing and study of flowers (from Flora the Roman goddess of flowers). Floral design and production of indoor foliage plants are usually included under floriculture.

5.   Greenhouse Management

The growing and study of plants in greenhouses. The principles of greenhouse management are also employed in other controlled-environment growing systems.

6.   Turfgrass Management

The growing and study of turfgrasses. This includes home, municipal and commercial lawns; sports turf maintenance; highway rights-of-way; and seed and sod production.

7.   Nursery Management

The growing and study of trees and shrubs that are produced primarily for landscape purposes.

8.   Arboriculture

The growing and study of trees (arbor means tree in Latin, so “arboriculture” means tree culture; it is termed silviculture in forestry). Arboriculture is essentially synonymous with urban forestry.

9.   Landscape Horticulture

The application of design and horticultural principles to the placement and care of plants in the landscape. This term implies the close tie between horticulture and landscape architecture.

10.   Interiorscaping

The application of design and horticultural principles to placement and care of plants in indoor environments.

11.   Horticultural Therapy

The use of horticultural plants and methods as therapeutic tools with disabled and disadvantaged people.

There often is a distinction between pure, or basic, science and applied science. In the past, horticulture has sometimes been called “applied botany.”

Horticulture applies principles of many other pure and applied sciences. In order to understand how to successfully grow a horticultural crop, for example, we apply the science of botany, including the study of plant structure — morphology and anatomy. We also use plant physiology, another division of botany, that explains how plants function.

A horticulturist also needs a knowledge of chemistry, because chemical reactions are important for understanding why we use particular cultural practices, such as fertilizer application and specific pest control practices.

• Biochemistry helps the horticulturist to explain metabolic reactions within and among cells to understand how plants will respond to external stimuli.
• Horticulturists use mathematics in calculating spray rates and for a host of other computations.
• They use physics to understand light and plant structure
• They use plant pathology to understand and cure or prevent plant diseases.
• They use a knowledge of soil science because plants are commonly grown in the soil.
• Finally, they use a knowledge of genetics because the genes in a plant interact with the environment to control the makeup of the organism.

Is horticulture a science or an art?

This is an age-old question and horticulture is undoubtedly both; one may employ the science but there is an art involved in successfully cultivating plants or placing them in a landscape design. This is where practical experience will be helpful.

This concept may be better understood with an analogy between the art of horticulture and piano playing. One can know technically how a piano functions and attend concerts for years, but that will probably not prepare one to perform like Beethoven.

Grafting is an example of combining the art and science of horticulture. One can understand the mechanics of grafting as well as the biology (anatomy of cells at the graft union), but it is only through practice that the art is mastered and a high degree of success is achieved.

Seldom do all horticulturists agree on everything relating to plants. Surprisingly, however, two scientists can both be correct when they differ in opinion about a cultural practice or its application. This certainly suggests that our applied science of horticulture is also an art form.