Talk:Horticulture/Archive 1

Water retaining question
Does anyone know about the plants that are the best at retaining stormwater in a sloping, wooded area?

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 January 2021 and 30 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Pink target.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:53, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Expand grafting and cutting
Some horticultural techniques need expanding badly - notably grafting and cuttings. Anyone? - Thanks, MPF 11:17, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Is bolding all of those words necessary? ugen64 19:59, Mar 20, 2004 (UTC)

Horticulture
Can anyone really tell me what is besides raising plants sans the green house?

Hello. I added some more information on what happens in horticultural nurseries. I think this needs more fleshing out but it also needs more sourcing Harristweed 04:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Good Srinivas edibilli (talk) 00:06, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Structure
Hello again. I am considering making this article bigger using structure. If anyone has an idea then place it in this section. I suggest: Overview, Floriculture, Landscape horticulture, horticultural education, horticulture as a hobby, and the future of horticulture. It may also be a good idea to include some references in that. Harristweed 04:19, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Random Question
Has the complete sequencing of the genome of the fungus, B. cinerea, been completed? Please Reply pop - 210.86.33.83 21:57, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Horticulture / agriculture
What is the difference between horticulture and agriculture, and could this be explained on the page? --Helenalex 22:51, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Can someone please edit the horticulturist page so it makes sense.


 * For starters, I bulleted the list of 6 aspects of horticulture. Seems much easier to read and research that way. Let me know if that change appears okay. M.D. Vaden of Oregon.Mdvaden 17:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Agriculture (from the Latin for field and culture) is the practice of cultivating the land for the purpose of producing a crop. i.e. The process of Farming. It is generally large scale, outdoor, monoculture.
 * Horticulture (from the Latin for garden and culture) is the art (technique) and activity of the cultivation of plants. The term encompasses techniques for raising and propagation, such as sowing of seed, vegetative reproduction (i.e. taking cuttings), layering etc. as well as such activities as plant breeding and cultural research.
 * The confusion arises because the process of agriculture frequently employs some horticultural techniques. Particularly arable agriculture where plants are routinely raised from seed, fed through the application of fertiliser, irrigated and treated with pesticides (fungicides, insecticides and the like). All plant growing (horticultural) techniques, yet the process is still agriculture (farming). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.121.243.35 (talk) 16:53, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The way I've been taught it, agronomy (In this case, agriculture) deals with all facets of agriculture relating to large-scale commercial production. (Typically >10 acres) Alternatively, horticulture refers to smaller scale commercial production and specifically the production of fruits/vegetables and non-food crops. (Such as flowers) Some crops can be both an agronomic and horticultural crop depending on the region in question. For example, in Idaho, a potato would be classified as an agronomic crop, whereas elsewhere in the United States, it would be a horticultural crop. -jr637 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.130.18.109 (talk) 13:17, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Missing information
Horticulture has a very meaning in anthropology, where it refers to "primitive" low-yield agriculture.--Pharos 17:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I am not aware of horticulture ever being defined as "a primitive, low yielding form of agriculture" - all the dictionaries and common usage I have observed clearly differentiate "horticulture" (plant growing) and "agriculture" (producing crops). Can you provide a reference? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.121.243.35 (talk) 17:00, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Contrasted with Agronomy
The second sentence previously read: Horticulture is the subdivision of Agriculture dealing in gardening of enclosed areas, in contrast to agronomy, which deals with field crops, and forestry which deals with forest trees and products related to them.

(emphasis added)

I have removed the italicized text. This definition of "agronomy" is not consistent with the explanation at agronomy nor with the definition at agronomy. Nothing at either page limits agronomy to field crops.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 11:03, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Then those other pages should be corrected. You should be able to find plenty of info on the net if you do not have access to any text books covering the subjects. Hardyplants 16:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

No, the proponent of the unsourced information is responsible for sourcing it. WP:SOFIXIT is not an excuse for not satisfying WP:V. The fact that I don't have time right now to research a more accurate definition does not mean I should let an unsourced and apparently inaccurate one stand. A quick look at several Agronomy web sites does not lead me to the conclusion that agronomy is limited to field crops. See the general references on the Agronomy article. If anyone concludes otherwise and has reliable sources to support that position, he or she should feel free to add the above information back in and correct the other articles as necessary.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 19:54, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

This is not correct. Horticulture is in no way a subset of agriculture. Agriculture is the process of producing crops, horticulture is the art of growing plants. The two things are technically and philosophically distinct. Agronomy is a subset of agriculture, or more specifically agricultural science. It is a term used for arable farming and research there into. Agronomy could also be considered to be a subset of horticulture. Please see above. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.121.243.35 (talk) 17:10, 21 November 2007 (UTC) hi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.250.25.253 (talk) 22:14, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The way I've been taught it, agronomy deals with all facets of agriculture relating to large-scale commercial production. (Typically >10 acres) Alternatively, horticulture refers to smaller scale commercial production and specifically the production of fruits/vegetables and non-food crops. (Such as flowers) Some crops can be both an agronomic and horticultural crop depending on the region in question. For example, in Idaho, a potato would be classified as an agronomic crop, whereas elsewhere in the United States, it would be a horticultural crop. -jr637 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.130.18.109 (talk) 13:19, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * What is the difference between "the process of producing" and "the art of growing"? What is the difference between "crops" and "plants"? Iapetus (talk) 17:27, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Sheet mulching in links
It doesn't deserve to be linked from the main horticulture article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.105.214.247 (talk) 19:46, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Request for protection
FYI: I have put in a request for long-term semi-protection of this page at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection—Horticulture due to its persistent, long-term vandalism and "high-profile" (in an academic, not pop-culture, sense) subject matter.
 * Peace and Passion &#9774; ''("I'm listening....") 21:05, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, it's been declined anyway. I just went through and counted the last 250 edits.  If you subtract from them the edits which were reverts and their associated vandalism edits, you're left with 113 edits (at my count).  That's less than 50%!  If that's not chronic vandalism, I don't know what is.
 * Peace and Passion &#9774; ''("I'm listening....") 21:30, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Indoor plant cultivation
There seems to be a redirect of Indoor plant cultivation to this article, yet this article never even mentions it.

Outdoor plant cultivation is less efficient than indoor cultivation since the plant can heat up too much and since light can't be directed, the latter would probably also waste allot of the plant's energy since it needs to follow the sun (morphogenesis)

This should be mentioned or a new article needs to be made, and atleast SON-T lamps and the red and blue led lights combination. This combination is necessairy to allow the plant to grow efficiently (plants used mostly red light for photosynthesis) and for morphogenesis (for this they require blue light). See also http://www.plantlab.nl/4.0/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.172.157 (talk) 13:44, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Fungiculture and other cultivation
is fungiculture a subset of horticulture? perhaps one might say that some fungiculture doesn't always involve gardens, depending on one's definition of "garden". but in the cases where it does occur in a garden, is it part of horticulture?

the first sentence of the article seems to indicate that fungiculture is not included in horticulture:


 * Horticulture is the art, science, technology and business of intensive plant cultivation for human use.

fungi are not plants, so their cultivation is excluded. but a few sentences later, we see


 * [Horticulture] is very diverse in its activities, incorporating plants for food (fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, culinary herbs) and non-food crops (flowers, trees and shrubs, turf-grass, hops, grapes, medicinal herbs).

now fungi (or at least mushrooms) are included. which is it, then? this sentence contains a few other problems, too. it lists mushrooms as an example of "plants for food", yet mushrooms are not plants. strangely, it only lists mushrooms in the "for food" list, despite the fact that many mushrooms are grown for medicinal, ornamental, or other non-food purposes. and it makes no mention of fungi that are cultivated for other parts besides mushrooms, such as mycelium or sclerotia. but the biggest issue with this sentence is that it contradicts the first one quoted above.

so is horticulture actually "the art, science, technology and business of intensive plant and fungus cultivation for human use"?

further, what about the cultivation of members of other kingdoms? if i was intensively cultivating algae or slime mold for human use, would that activity be included in horticulture? what about the cultivation of colonies of bacteria or archaea?

further still, is it really a requirement that the organisms are cultivated for human use? what if a human is cultivating them for a dog's use? what if an ant hive is cultivating them for its own use? the methods involved in cultivation are largely—though not entirely—agnostic of the organisms that perform the cultivation and of the organisms that make use of the products. shouldn't it be valid to call those methods "horticultural" even if humans are not involved?

and is it even relevant that the products have a use? what if i'm cultivating some plants simply because i think it's a good hobby but i have no actual use for the plants that i produce? am i not still practicing horticulture?

returning to the word's etymology, it seems that the defining characteristic of horticulture should be the cultivation of a garden. what, then, is a garden? i propose that it is any colocated collection of apparently (to the cultivators) stationary organisms cultivated by other organisms (the cultivators).

perhaps the definition of horticulture should be


 * Horticulture is the art, science, technology, and business of intensive cultivation of stationary organisms.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nisavid (talk • contribs) 11:44, 26 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Obviously there are multiple senses in which the word is used in common English, and the article should cater for all of them. It is not the purpose of Wikipedia to come up with an agreed definition. Mushroom cultivation is often treated as a branch of horticulture in that fungi and their cultivation have many of the characteristics of plants and their cultivation (including as your definition above suggests, being stationary organisms). Imc (talk) 07:24, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

"Understanding horticulture"
This section is absolute balls. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paranoidbeemer (talk • contribs) 03:38, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Subjective and Off-Topic Etymology
The etymology section is a wreck.

It starts out fine, but then it veers off topic and attempts to persuade the reader that horticulture is more than what people thinks, as if the writer was a horticulturist themselves. That's two offenses at least: subjection and irrelevance. That paragraph isn't 'easy on the eyes' either. It is far too long to be single paragraph, and instead ought to be broken up into smaller chunks so the reader can take it in. That's a third offense: Long section.

What's more, looking at this talk page I can tell that this entire article has had an even more subjective past.

This topic explains the Templates that I placed underneath the second paragraph of the section: 'Etymology'.

Mr. Guye (talk) 23:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree and have attempted to fix the problems you identified, by removing most of the section, and moving a little bit of it to a new section. I took the liberty of removing both the multiple-issues section tag and the overall bias tag. Please feel free to re-tag if you think there are still issues. For what it's worth, much of what I removed, and some of what I left, have the flavor of a textbook, making me wonder if there is a copyright violation, but I have no evidence that this is the case. At any rate, thanks for identifying the problem! Peter Chastain   [habla, por favor]  04:34, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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Introduction
Hello! I am a student editor from Texas A&M University. I will be performing edits on this article in terms of organization and style as well as fact-checking the information already written. After reading this article, I recognize major organizational issues which can be addressed by rearranging the section headings and reorganizing where certain information is written. I also believe the information portrayed in this article comes off a bit overwhelming, so one of my goals includes making this article more reader-friendly by analyzing the truly crucial information that should be kept in the article. I will be performing these types of edits during the next few weeks, and I will be explaining these edits on this talk page. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pink target (talk • contribs) 16:13, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Edits on the lead paragraph
The paragraph is not an appropriate summary of the entire article as a lead paragraph is recommended to be. The first sentence gives a vague definition for horticulture while within the body of the article, improved definitions can be found. I would suggest modifying this first sentence to a definition that grabs the reader’s attention a bit more. Also, from the second paragraph and on, the focus shifts from horticulture to horticulturists and their duties/responsibilities. I consider these sentences can be restructured in a way to describe the main subject – horticulture. My edited paragraph is pasted below:

Horticulture is the science, art, and practice of cultivating plants, flowers, fruits, vegetables, spices, and medicinal and aromatic crops with the purpose of decoration, beauty, ornament, and fancy. Historically, the study and practice of horticulture have been traced back to thousands of years ago; horticulture is known to have contributed to the transition from nomadic human communities to sedentary, or semi-sedentary, horticultural communities. Horticulture is divided into several categories which focus on the cultivation and processing of different types of plants and food items for specific purposes. In order to conserve the science of horticulture, multiple organizations worldwide educate, encourage, and promote the advancement of horticulture. Some notable horticulturists include Luca Ghini, Luther Burbank, and Tony Avent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pink target (talk • contribs) 15:42, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Edits on "Etymology" section
I consider the etymology section to be too short to be a stand-alone section; instead, I would like to combine that information with the information included in the definition section. I believe also the first sentence of the etymology paragraph is the most useful and straight-forward to the reader. After that, it talks about the past participle and cognate of the word, which I believe might be a violation of WP:NOT. Wikipedia is not a textbook and should not try to teach the reader about the grammar of the word by using academic language that may not be comfortable or familiar to the reader. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pink target (talk • contribs) 16:00, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Edits on "History" section
The first sentence, "History has a very long history" seems to lightly violate WP:NPOV since it sounds like an opinion trying to be stated as a fact. In addition, I considered that this sentence led the reader to jump into conclusions about the history of horticulture and violates WP:NOR. I decided to delete this sentence since it also did not add much to the entirety of the section.

The information about when exactly horticulture began was a bit confusing at first. Different dates and different aspects of horticulture were stated, and I felt like that might overwhelm the reader a bit. Instead, I decided to combine this information into one sentence to help with the flow of the article. After, I moved a segment in one of the stronger sentences of the first paragraph: "The origins of horticulture lie in the transition of human communities from a nomadic lifestyle as hunter-gatherers to sedentary, or semi-sedentary, horticultural communities..." to summarize the impact of horticulture in history.

The remaining of this section has very good information; the only issue I saw was organization. At first, the Mesoamerican culture is mentioned a bit before switching to Pre-Columbian regions; however, the Maya culture, of which the Mesoamerica culture is part, is mentioned at the end of the section. I decided to combine these two pieces of information to help the flow of the paragraph. On the sentence referring to the Pre-Columbian region, it is mentioned that natives "are believed to have used..."; in my opinion, this violates WP:NPOV since the use of weasel words creates an unprofessional tone and tries to disguise an opinion as a fact. I deleted the "are believed to" part. With the rest of the information, I mostly modified minor syntax and grammar errors.

One piece of information that I believe should be removed is the last sentence of the original first paragraph since no citation is connected to the fact stated: "A characteristic of horticultural communities is that useful trees are often to be found planted around communities or specially retained from the natural ecosystem."[citation needed]

My edited "History" section is pasted below:

The study and practice of horticulture are traced back to the times of Cyrus the Great of ancient Persia and continues to be a part of today’s society with present-day horticulturists such as Freeman S. Howlett and Luther Burbank. The origins of horticulture lie in the transition of human communities from a nomadic lifestyle as hunter-gatherers to sedentary, or semi-sedentary, horticultural communities. In the Pre-Columbian Amazon Rainforest, natives used biochar to enhance soil productivity by smoldering plant waste.[11] European settlers called this soil Terra Preta de Indio.[12] In forest areas, such horticulture was often carried out in swiddens, or "slash and burn" areas.[13] In pre-contact North America, the semi-sedentary horticultural communities of the Eastern Woodlands, who grew maize, squash, and sunflower, contrasted markedly with the nomadic hunter-gatherer communities of the Plains people. Mesoamerican cultures focused in the cultivating of crops on a small scale, such as the “milpa” or maize field, around their dwellings or in specialized plots which were visited occasionally during migrations from one area to the next[10]. 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 such as beans, squash, pumpkins and chili peppers were grown, and in some cultures, these crops were tended mainly or exclusively by women.[14] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pink target (talk • contribs) 18:57, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Edits on the "Definition" section
I considered this section should be renamed to "Scope" since it involves more than just definitions. It also involves more background information and the extent of the field. On the original definition paragraph, the first two sentences seemed to be too repetitive. Instead of helping the reader understand horticulture, I felt like this information overload would overwhelm and possibly confuse the reader. Instead, I deleted these sentences. I took one of the best sentences in the original lead paragraph: "... involves plant propagation and cultivation with the aim of improving plant growth, yields, quality, nutritional value and resistance to insects, diseases and environmental stresses", and rearranged it to become a stronger opening sentence for this first paragraph. I kept the original third sentence of this paragraph since it was very good!

Now, this is where I included the information kept from the original etymology section. I discussed this separately on another talk page post. Since this information makes reference to agriculture, I placed all the information comparing horticulture and agriculture after this. The information from the original Scope subsection was also reorganized and placed here to help the flow of the paragraph. The original Scope subsection was then deleted.

Next, I renamed the Subareas subsection to a more descriptive title: "Types of Horticulture". For the most part, this section remained the same with the exception of some sentence re-structuring, but the information was all kept the same.

My edited Scope section (which would be the second section of the article) is pasted below:

== Scope == Horticulture involves plant propagation and cultivation to improve plant growth, yields, quality, nutritional value, and resistance to insects, diseases, and environmental stresses. It also includes plant conservation, landscape restoration, soil management, landscape and garden design, construction and maintenance, and arboriculture. The word horticulture is modeled after agriculture; it derives from the Latin words hortus and cultura, which mean “garden” and “cultivation”, respectively. In contrast to agriculture, horticulture does not include large-scale crop production or animal husbrandy. Additionally, horticulture focuses on the use of small plots with a wide variety of mixed crops while agriculture focuses on one large primary crop at a time. ==== Types of Horticulture ==== There are several major areas of focus within the science of horticulture. These major areas include:
 * Arboriculture involves the study, selection, plant, care, and removal of individual trees, shrubs, vines, and other perennial woody plants.
 * Turf management focuses on the production and maintenance of turf grass for sports, leisure use, and amenity use.
 * Floriculture consists of the study, production, and marketing of floral crops.
 * Landscape horticulture involves the production, marketing, and maintenance of landscape plants.
 * Olericulture focuses on the production and marketing of vegetables.
 * Pomology includes the production, processing, cultivation, and marketing of fruits.
 * Viticulture includes the production and marketing on grapes.
 * Oenology focuses on the aspects of wine and winemaking.
 * Postharvest physiology consists of maintaining the quality of plants and preventing their spoilage.

Edits on "Organizations" section
The main edit I had for this section was in terms of organization. The original first paragraph talks about two organizations, but there is no transitional words that make clear why they are in the same paragraph. I made a few re-phrasing and organization changes to help the flow of the paragraph.

I also noticed there are two organizations that have the same "focus" or "purpose", yet they are written in separate paragraphs, which I believe is a bit repetitive. Instead, I organized the information on these two organizations into one paragraph. Since the purpose these organizations have is a common purpose for any horticulture organization, I decided to use this paragraph as sort of an introduction to the entire section as well.

Next, I combined the small paragraphs discussing the organizations in Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand into one bigger paragraph. These were too brief, more like sentences, to stand as individual paragraphs, and since they all belong to a similar geographical region, I considered it would be appropriate to combine them. The New Zealand Horticulture Institute was just listed; no information was given, which I believe should definitely changed. I merely mentioned it was an organization, but this can definitely be explored more by future editors of this article.

For the paragraph discussing NJHA, I only had one minor syntax modification. For the GlobalHort paragraph, I removed the words "more efficient and effective" on the firsts sentence. I believe this choice of words violates WP:NPOV since they create a biased opinion towards the organization's actions and partnerships being superior to the others. This also violates WP:NOR since no reliable sources are found to support the allegation that this organization's partnerships are superior to those of other organizations. The remainder of the paragraph, the only modifications made were due to small grammar errors or syntax. I decided to also change the section name to "Horticultural Organizations" to be more specific.

My edited "Horticultural Organizations" section is pasted below:

There are various organization worldwide that focus on promoting and encouraging research and education in all branches of horticultural science; such organizations include the International Society for Horticultural Science[18], the American Society of Horticultural Science[19], and the New Zealand Horticulture Institute.[22] In United Kingdom, there are two main horticulture societies. The Ancient Society of York Florists is the oldest horticultural society in the world and was founded in 1768; this organization continues to host four horticultural shows annually in York, UK.[16] Additionally, The Royal Horticultural Society, established in 1804, is a charity in United Kingdom that leads on the encouragement and improvement of the science, art, and practice of horticulture in all its branches.[15] The organization shares the knowledge of horticulture through its community, learning programs, and world-class gardens and shows. The Chartered Institute of Horticulture (CIoH) is the professional body which represents horticulturists in Great Britain and Ireland[17] while also having an international branch for members outside of these islands. The Australian Society of Horticultural Science was established in 1990 as a professional society to promote and enhance Australian horticultural science and industry.[20] Finally, the New Zealand Horticulture Institute is another known horticultural organization. [22] The National Junior Horticultural Association (NJHA) was established in 1934 and was the first organization in the world dedicated solely to youth and horticulture. NJHA programs are designed to help young people obtain a basic understanding of horticulture and develop skills in this ever-expanding art and science.[21] The Global Horticulture Initiative (GlobalHort) fosters partnerships and collective action among different stakeholders in horticulture. This organization has a special focus on horticulture for development (H4D), which involves using horticulture to reduce poverty and improve nutrition worldwide. GlobalHort is organized in a consortium of national and international organizations which collaborate in research, training, and technology-generating activities designed to meet mutually-agreed-upon objectives. GlobalHort is a non-profit organization registered in Belgium.[23] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pink target (talk • contribs) 15:17, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Grammar
Hi This edit didn’t work. Grammar etc. Invasive Spices (talk) 23:02, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Do you mean because I accidentally removed the "back"? Which I just restored. Largoplazo (talk) 01:10, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes. Seems fine now. Invasive Spices (talk) 14:45, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: BIOL 343
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