Horticulture is defined as that branch of agriculture concerned with growing plants that are used by people for food, for medicinal purposes, and for aesthetic gratification

1. HORTICULTURE
-Deepika.U

2. HORTICULTURE
Horticulture, the branch of plant
agriculture dealing with garden crops,
generally fruits, vegetables, and
ornamental plants. The word is derived
from the Latin hortus, ”garden,” and
colere, ”to cultivate.” As a general
term, it covers all forms of garden
management, but in ordinary use it
refers to intensive commercial
production. In terms of scale,
horticulture falls between domestic
gardening and field agriculture, though
all forms of cultivation naturally have
close links.

3. Horticulture is divided into the cultivation of plants
for food (pomology and olericulture) and plants for ornament (floriculture and landscape
horticulture). Pomology deals with fruit and nut crops. Olericulture deals with herbaceous
plants for the kitchen, including, for example, carrots (edible root), asparagus (edible
stem), lettuce (edible leaf), cauliflower (edible flower buds), tomatoes (edible fruit),
and peas (edible seed). Floriculture deals with the production of flowers and ornamental
plants; generally, cut flowers, pot plants, and greenery. Landscape horticulture is a broad
category that includes plants for the landscape, including lawn turf but
particularly nursery crops such as shrubs, trees, and vines..
The specialization of the horticulturist and the success of the crop are influenced by
many factors. Among these are climate, terrain, and other regional variations.

4. Horticultural regions

5. Temperate zones
Temperate zones for horticulture cannot be defined exactly by lines of latitude or
longitude but are usually regarded as including those areas where frost in winter occurs,
even though rarely. Thus, most parts of Europe, North America, and northern Asia are
included, though some parts of the United States, such as southern Florida, are considered
subtropical. A few parts of the north coast of the Mediterranean and the Mediterranean
islands are also subtropical. In the Southern Hemisphere, practically all of New Zealand, a
few parts of Australia, and the southern part of South America have temperate climates. For
horticultural purposes altitude is also a factor; the lower slopes of great mountain ranges,
such as the Himalayas and the Andes, are included. Thus, the temperate zones are very
wide and the range of plants that can be grown in them is enormous, probably greater than
in either the subtropical or tropical zones. In the temperate zones are the great coniferous
and deciduous forests: pine, spruce, fir, most of the cypresses, the deciduous oaks (but
excluding many of the evergreen ones), ash, birch, and linden.
The temperate zones are also the areas of the grasses—the finest lawns particularly are
in the regions of moderate or high rainfall—and of the great cereal crops. Rice is excluded
as being tropical, but wheat, barley, corn (maize), and rye grow well in the temperate zones.

6. Plants in the temperate zones benefit from a winter resting season, which
clearly differentiates them from tropical plants, which tend to grow
continuously. Bulbs, annuals, herbaceous perennials, and deciduous trees become more
frost-resistant with the fall of sap and therefore have a better chance of passing the resting
season undamaged. Another influence is the varying length of darkness and light
throughout the year, so that many plants, such as chrysanthemums, have a
strong photoperiodism. The chrysanthemum flowers only in short daylight periods,
although artificial lighting in nurseries can produce flowers the year round.
Most of the great gardens of the world have been developed in temperate zones.
Particular features such as rose gardens, herbaceous borders, annual borders, woodland
gardens, and rock gardens are also those of temperate-zone gardens. Nearly all depend for
their success on the winter resting period.

7. Tropical zone
There is no sharp line of demarcation between the tropics and the subtropics. Just as
many tropical plants can be cultivated in the subtropics, so also many subtropical and even
temperate plants can be grown satisfactorily in the tropics. Elevation is a determining
factor. For example, the scarlet runner bean, a common plant in temperate regions, grows,
flowers, and develops pods normally on the high slopes of Mount Meru in Africa near the
Equator, but it will not set pods in Hong Kong, a subtropical situation a little south of
the Tropic of Cancer but at a low elevation.
In addition to elevation, another determinant is the annual distribution of rainfall.
Plants that grow and flower in the monsoon areas, as in India, will not succeed where the
climate is uniformly wet, as in Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. Another factor is the
length of day, the number of hours the Sun is above the horizon; some plants flower only if
the day is long, but others make their growth during the long days and flower when the day
is short. Certain strains of the cosmos plant are so sensitive to light that where the day is
always about 12 hours, as near the Equator, they flower when only a few inches high; if
grown near the Tropic of Cancer or the Tropic of Capricorn, they attain a height of several
feet, if the seeds are sown in the spring, before flowering in the short days of autumn and
winter. .

8. In the tropics of Asia and parts of Central and South America, the dominant features of
the gardens are flowering trees, shrubs, and climbers. Herbaceous plants are relatively few,
but many kinds of orchids can be grown.
Vegetable crops vary in kind and quality with the presence or absence of periodic dry
seasons. In the uniformly wet tropics, the choice is limited to a few root crops and still
fewer greens. Sweet potatoes grow and bear good crops where the average monthly rainfall,
throughout the year, exceeds 25 cm (10 inches), but they grow even better where there is a
dry season. The same can be said of taro, yams, and cassava. Tropical greens from
the Malay Peninsula are not as good as those grown in South China, the Hawaiian Islands,
and Puerto Rico. They include several spinaches, of which Chinese spinach or amaranth is
the best; several cabbages; Chinese onions and chives; and several gourds, cucumbers, and,
where there is a dry season, watermelons. Eggplants, peppers, and okra are widely
cultivated. Many kinds of beans can be grown successfully, including the French bean from
the American subtropics, the many varieties of the African cowpea, and yard-long bean.
The yam bean, a native of tropical America, is grown for its edible tuber. In the drier areas
the pigeon pea, the soybean, the peanut (groundnut), and the Tientsin green bean are
important crops. Miscellaneous crops include watercress, ginger, lotus, and bamboo.

9. ORNAMENTAL
HORTICULTURE

10. Ornamental horticulture
Ornamental horticulture consists of floriculture and landscape horticulture. Each is
concerned with growing and marketing plants and with the associated activities of flower
arrangement and landscape design. The turf industry is also considered a part of ornamental
horticulture. Although flowering bulbs, flower seed, and cut flowers represent an important
component of agricultural production for the Netherlands, Ecuador, and Colombia,
ornamentals are relatively insignificant in world trade.
Floriculture has long been an important part of horticulture, especially in Europe and
Japan, and accounts for about half of the nonfood horticultural industry in the United
States. Because flowers and pot plants are largely produced in plant-growing structures in
temperate climates, floriculture is largely thought of as a greenhouse industry; there is,
however, considerable outdoor culture of many flowers.

11. The industry is usually very specialized with respect to its crop; the grower must provide precise
environmental control. Exact scheduling is imperative since most floral crops are seasonal in demand.
Because the product is perishable, transportation to market must function smoothly to avoid losses.
The floriculture industry involves the grower, who mass-produces flowers for the wholesale market,
and the retail florist, who markets to the public. The grower is often a family farm, but, as in all
modern agriculture, the size of the growing unit is increasing. There is a movement away from urban
areas, with their high taxes and labour costs, to locations with lower tax rates and a rural labour pool
and also toward more favourable climatic regions (milder temperature and more sunlight). The
development of airfreight has emphasized interregional and international competition. Flowers can be
shipped long distances by air and arrive in fresh condition to compete with locally grown products.
The industry of landscape horticulture is divided into growing, maintenance, and design.
Growing of plants for landscape is called the nursery business, although a nursery refers broadly to the
growing and establishment of any young plant before permanent planting. The nursery industry
involves production and distribution of woody and herbaceous plants and is often expanded to include
ornamental bulb crops—corms, tubers, rhizomes, and swollen roots as well as true bulbs. Production
of cuttings to be grown in greenhouses or for indoor use (foliage plants), as well as the production of
bedding plants, is usually considered part of floriculture, but this distinction is fading. While most
nursery crops are ornamental, the nursery business also includes fruit plants and
certain perennial vegetables used in home gardens, for example, asparagus and rhubarb.

12. Next to ornamental trees and shrubs, the most important nursery crops are fruit plants,
followed by bulb crops. The most important single plant grown for outdoor cultivation is
the rose. The type of nursery plants grown depends on location; in general (in the Northern
Hemisphere) the northern areas provide deciduous and coniferous evergreens, whereas the
southern nurseries provide tender broad-leaved evergreens.
The nursery industry includes wholesale, retail, and mail-order operations. The typical
wholesale nursery specializes in relatively few crops and supplies only retail nurseries or
florists. The wholesale nursery deals largely in plant propagation, selling young seedlings
and rooted cuttings, known as “lining out” stock, of woody material to the retail nursery.
The retail nursery then cares for the plants until growth is complete. Many nurseries also
execute the design of the planting in addition to furnishing the plants.

13. Horticultural education
and research

14. Scholarly works in horticulture appear continuously in scientific literature. Specific institutions devoted to
horticultural research, however, go back to the beginning of the experiment-station system, the first being a private
laboratory of John Bennet Lawes, with the later collaboration of Joseph Henry Gilbert, in Rothamsted, England
(1843). Horticultural education and research in the United States were given great impetus by Justin S. Morrill, a
supporter of the Morrill Act (1862), which provided educational institutions in agricultural and mechanical arts for
each state. State experimental stations and the federal experimental stations of the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
with its centre at Beltsville, Maryland, carry out systematic research efforts in horticulture. Although much research is
carried out on horticultural food crops, there has been an increasing emphasis on ornamentals. Horticultural research
is also conducted by private companies among the seed industry, canning and processing firms, and private
foundations and botanical gardens.
Horticultural education is an established part of professional agricultural education worldwide. Training in
horticulture up to the Ph.D. degree is offered in universities. There are relatively few schools devoted to the training
of gardeners and horticultural technicians in the United States, although a number of state universities have two-year
programs in horticulture. The Master Gardener program offers intensive horticultural training in conjunction with a
number of land-grant universities and extensions across the United States and Canada; its graduates are required to
volunteer in their communities in order to maintain an active status. Vocational horticultural training is more highly
developed in Europe.

15. There are a great number of national and international societies devoted to
horticulture. These include community organizations such as garden clubs, specialty
organizations devoted to a particular plant or group of plants (e.g., rose and orchid
societies), scientific societies, and trade organizations. The first society devoted to
horticulture originated in 1804 with the establishment in England of the Royal Horticultural
Society. There are similar organizations in other European countries. The American
Pomological Society, dedicated to the science and practice of fruit growing, was formed in
1848. The American Horticultural Society, established in 1922, is devoted largely to
ornamentals and gardening. The American Society for Horticultural Science was
established in 1903 and became perhaps the most widely known scientific society devoted
to horticulture. The International Society for Horticultural Science, formed in 1959 in
Belgium, sponsors international congresses every four years. Most societies and
horticultural organizations publish periodicals, and there are thousands of publications in
the world devoted to some aspect of horticulture.

16. THANK YOU