Horticulture and Vegetable Production
Horticulture and Vegetable Production
This domain covers branches of horticulture, propagation, training and pruning, orchard planning, vegetable production and protected cultivation.
Core rules
- Horticulture includes pomology (fruit), olericulture (vegetables) and floriculture (flowers).
- Sexual propagation uses seed; asexual propagation uses cuttings, layering, grafting, budding and tissue culture.
- In grafting, the scion forms the shoot and the rootstock supplies roots; budding uses a single bud.
- Training shapes the plant framework; pruning removes plant parts to influence growth, yield or quality.
- Plant population per hectare = 10,000 m² ÷ (spacing in metres)² for square planting.
- Protected cultivation uses greenhouses, shade nets and mulches to modify temperature, light and moisture.
Worked example
A fruit orchard is planted at 2.5 m × 2.5 m. Area per plant = 2.5 × 2.5 = 6.25 m². Plants per hectare = 10,000 ÷ 6.25 = 1,600 plants. If 5% of the area is reserved for paths, the plantable area is 9,500 m² and the number falls to 9,500 ÷ 6.25 = 1,520 plants. The reasoning is to convert hectares to square metres before dividing by the per-plant area.
Mark-losing traps
- Confusing grafting with budding; budding uses one bud, grafting uses a scion piece.
- Reversing training and pruning.
- Forgetting to convert hectares to 10,000 m² in spacing problems.
- Treating all horticultural crops as annuals; many fruit trees are perennial.