Horticulture

The Latin words hortus (garden plant) and cultura (culture) together form horticulture, classically defined as the culture or growing of garden plants. 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.

See also

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

External links

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

• Horticultural crop names and alternate names
• Horticulture resources
• The British Library - finding information on the horticulture industry
• HORTIVAR - The FAO Horticulture Cultivars Performance Database