Horticulture Technology - Essay Example

Horticulture Technology Agriculture involves so many characters including horticulture. Horticulture is one aspect that has its major dealings with science, technology and the business that is much involved with intensive cultivation of plants for human use. This activity is practiced on the individual sector which grows out to be a multinational corporation. It involves diversification of several activities which includes incorporation of food from the plants and also non-food crops. The food plants include fruits, vegetables, mushrooms and culinary herbs while the non-food plants include flowers, trees and shrubs, turf-grass, hops and medicinal herbs (Christopher, 2009). Horticulture does not only include cultivation, but it also includes services such as plant conservation, landscape restoration, arboriculture, horticultural therapy and many other services. As seen, horticultural has a wide range of services ranging from food, environment, medicine and other social services which are out to influence, develop and maintain human health and the well-being (Brooking, 1970). The activities involved in horticulture are discussed in this paper. Grafting In horticulture, there is the existence of grafting. Grafting is one technique used in horticulture where tissues are moved from one plant to another plant so as the sets of vascular tissues join together. The vascular joining is always called inosculation. It is always used in asexual propagation of the commercial grown plants for the horticultural and the agricultural trades. Mostly, one plant is identified for the roots and is commonly referred to as the rootstock. Another plant is selected for the stem, branches and leaves. This part of the plant is the scion or the cion. The scion is the part that has the desired and necessary genes that are needed to be duplicated for future production by the stock/scion plant. During stem grafting, there is a common grafting method that is used. A shoot of an identified and desired plant cultivar is grafted onto another type of plant. Another form of grafting is the bud grafting where a dominant side bud is normally grafted onto the stem of another stock plant. Pruning is later done so as to encourage the growth of the plant if it has successfully inosculated. Pruning is done on the stem of the stock of the plant just above the newly grafted bud. Tissue culture Tissue culture is another form of horticulture technology. In tissue culture, tissues or cells are grown separate from the organism. To facilitate this, use of liquid, semi-solid or solid growth medium is needed such as algar. It commonly refers to the culture of the animal cells and tissues. To be more specific, tissue culture in plants is known as plant tissue culture. When it comes to the modern society, tissue culture is an aspect that involves the growth of cells and tissues from a multicellular organism in vitro. The cells can be isolated from the donor organism, from the primary cells or isolated from an immortalized cell line. The cells are kept in a culture medium which involves very essential nutrients and energy sources necessary for the cell’s survival. This term tissue culture is used hand in hand with cell culture. The other meaning of tissue culture is that the tissue culture involves culturing of tissue pieces. Tissue culture is an important aspect in horticulture. In growing of fruits, tissue culturing can be used in producing more healthy fruits by use of different genes. Tissue culture can also be used in the production of medicines by transferring other genes to other cells so as better medicines can be produced. As discussed, horticulture is on the rise for the purpose of human benefits. Generally, plant tissue culture specifically deals with the growing of entire plants from the small pieces of plant tissue, cultured in medium. Pruning and training After growers have done their plantations, training and pruning arises. Most of the growers involved inefficient methods in pruning their plants. Despite the fact that these growers involve inefficient ways of pruning, they also neglect the annual training and pruning of fruit trees. Fruit trees need to be pruned to enable them to develop proper shape and form. All in all, pruning involves training so as to know the best way of pruning. High yields are expected if the trees are well trained and well pruned. Additionally, the fruit trees live longer. Pruning involves the removal of a segment of a tree to correct or maintain the tree structure while training is one of the new activities where tree growth is really directed into one desired shape and form. It is essential and very important to train young fruit trees for better development. After a young fruit tree has been trained, it is directed through pruning. Most people do pruning in winter times. This is commonly referred to as dormant pruning while training is done mostly in the summer time. During this time summer pruning and dormant pruning is also done. The main objective behind tree training is to give direction to tree growth and reduce minimize cutting.           The first objective and aim of training and pruning is to enhance the development of a strong tree framework that will stimulate fruit production. The fruit trees that have undergone poor training have very upright branch angles which cause serious limb breakage if the branch is under heavy fruit load. This then will decrease the productivity of a given fruit tree which may also reduce tree life. Additionally, the aim of annual training and pruning is to eliminate dead, diseased and or broken limbs. When fruit trees are properly trained, the canopy of the trees is opened up to allow light penetration. In most of the deciduous fruit trees, the flower buds in the current season’s crop are commonly formed in the previous summer. Energy is very important to plants, so if there is maximum light penetration to fruit trees, flower buds will greatly develop and there will be optimal fruit set, flavor and quality. Despite the fact that a fully grown tree grows in full sun, there will be no adequate light penetration in a dense canopy. Light needs to penetrate to at least 12 to 18 inches inside the canopy. If the canopy is opened, adequate air movement through trees is permitted. Adequate air circulation influences rapid drying which reduces disease infection and also allows thorough pesticide penetration. Generally, a well-shaped fruit tree is just pleasing either planted on the landscaped yard, garden or a commercial orchard. Chemical weed control In horticulture, there are several ways used to control weeds. The most efficient way used is by use of chemicals. Mostly herbicides are the chemical sprays that are used to control weeds. Mostly use of herbicides is efficient since they do the job quickly. Secondly herbicides can be cheaper, and they can be easy to use when controlling weeds. And thirdly, these herbicides have no effect on the soil structure. And additionally, these herbicides don’t spread weed seeds or weed parts around. However, these herbicides have their disadvantages. First enough, these herbicides are plant resistance. Most plants are resistant to the chemicals used to eliminate weeds in plantations. Secondly, most of these herbicides are majorly expensive. Since this method is an effective one, it is mostly expensive since it needs some training and time. Thirdly, these chemicals contaminate the environment. Some of these chemicals are poisonous or contaminants thus they contaminate the environment. Though this method is effective, the chemicals used have an effect on the environment. The last disadvantage is that these chemicals can harm and kill important plants. Greenhouse and protected culture Greenhouse is one aspect that appreciates the continuum for protected cultivation. This is done so as crops be at the top of the heap. For so many years about 10,000 years, crops have been grown outside. However, crops grown outside re subjected to risk factors. Some of these risk factors include torrential rains, scorching heat and other factors. So the idea of greenhouse and protected culture was employed in the technology of horticulture to prevent crops from adverse factors (Hanan, 1998). Plasticulture The use of plastic materials in the practice of agriculture is commonly referred to as Plasticulture. The plastics used in this practice are normally referred to as the AG plastics. These AG plastics includes soil fumigation film, irrigation drip tape or tubing, the silage bags and lastly the nursery pots. However, the term refers to all plastics used to cover plants or soils. They may range from plastic mulch film, high and low tunnels to row coverings. They may also include plastic greenhouses (Hayes, 1983). Hydroponics This type of practice is a subset of hydro-culture. It is one of the methods of growing plants with the use of nutrient solutions in water with no soil. Most of the plants grown in such environment are the terrestrial plants. These plants are grown with the roots inserted in the mineral nutrient solution only. Either, the roots, may also be inserted in the inert medium like perlite, expanded clay, mineral wool and gravel. Sometimes they are grown in biochar or coconut husk. This is all done to expect better productions when practicing horticulture either as an individual or as a corporation. Mechanic harvesting It is important to use efficient methods in harvesting in the practice of horticulture. Most people use human based techniques which are slow and tiresome during harvesting. Horticultural crops are those crops that are urgently needed. So mechanical harvesting is the efficient method to be used in horticultural harvesting. Discovery of photosynthesis When life was originated bout 4 billion years ago, the atmosphere only was composed of methane, CO2 and water vapour. There were no traces of gaseous oxygen since it had been consumed by combustion just before the earth cooled. Joseph Priestly was the person who discovered the idea of photosynthesis after he isolated a certain volume of air in an inverted jar and burned a candle inside it. The candle would burn out very fast then it ran out of wax. The lost air in the inverted jar would then be recovered by the plant. In horticulture, exposure of plants to sun’s energy is very important since they provide oxygen and hence they nourished very well (Butti, & Perlin, 1980). Selection and plant breeding Other plants are reproduced through self-fertilization. Self-fertilization is where pollen grains of a given plant fertilize ovules from the same plant. Other plants are reproduced through cross-pollination. Cross-pollination is done when pollen grains from one plant fertilizes ovules from another plant. Plant breeding can also be done through asexual propagation or also called vegetative propagation to produce plant identical to the parent plant. However, the differences come to change the way a plant breeder works.  There is a phenomenon in which seeds are produced but in an essential asexual way. Here, the parent and the offspring are belonged to one clone just like in a normal asexual propagation. This phenomenon is known to as apomixis.   The genetic composition of a given plant is determined by the mode of reproduction. This in turn acts as the determining factor in the development of suitable breeding and selection methods. Information about the mode of reproduction is very important for its artificial manipulation to give rise to improved types. The breeding and selection methods are the just the best for those plants that do not interfere with the natural state of the plant or ensures the maintenance of the state. For this reasons, the imposition of self-fertilization on cross-pollinating crops may lead to a reduction in their productivity. Rootstocks Rootstocks can be used to reduce the vigour of the fruit trees and hence allow a small range in growth. They can also give contribution to the disease resisting abilities of the plant. In horticulture, most fruit trees and ornamental trees are grafted on to Rootstocks. These rootstocks then manage the vigour of the plant which then allows the cultivation of the trees and bushes in a very small place than when they are grown in their own roots. Photoperiodism and crop scheduling Photoperiodism as used in horticulture is a term used when plants respond to the relative length of light and dark periods. This is very important since if plants do not respond to such factors, then it means that they are not active, and this may affect their productivity. Crop scheduling is as well important and is done through manipulating day length of crops in greenhouses (Butti, & Perlin, 1980). References Brooking, W. J. (1970). Ornamental horticulture technology; suggested 2-year post high school curriculums. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare, Office of Education :. Butti, K., & Perlin, J. (1980). A golden thread: 2500 years of solar architecture and technology. Palo Alto: Cheshire Books ;. Christopher, E. P. (2009). Introductory horticulture. Delhi: Biotech Books. Hanan, J. J. (1998). Greenhouses: advanced technology for protected horticulture. Boca Raton: CRC Press. Hayes, J. (1983). Energy conserving greenhouses: horticulture and technology working together. New York: American Solar Energy Society. Read More