Horticulture

The word horticulture is derived from two Latin words which are HORTUS and COLERE, the word HORTUS means garden while COLERE means to cultivate. Since the word agriculture means the technology of crop production and the rearing of animals for man`s utilization, or raising plant and animals for man`s utilization. Horticulture refers to that part of the plant of agriculture that is concerned with the garden crops production. Horticulture deals with all crops that need intensive cultural practices and the plants are usually given individual attention. They require a large input of capital, labor and technology per unit area of land.

Horticulture therefore, maybe said to be the practice of growing and manipulating plants in a relative method. This is in contrast with Western agriculture which in most Western Europe countries, relies on a high level of machinery use over an extensive area of land, consequently involving few people in the production process. However, the boundary between the two is far from clear, especially when considering large scale vegetable production.

There are fundamental differences between productive horticulture (producing plant themselves or plant products) and service horticulture (the development and upkeep of gardens and landscape for their amenity, cultural and recreational values).

To this end, horticulture can be describe as the branch of agriculture that deals with the cultivation, management and sales of horticultural products such as vegetables, fruits and ornamental crops that are beneficial to man. It involves the sales of produce, because not until a product gets to the consumer in the chain of production, the producer has not produced.

Horticulture