Advantages And Disadvantages Of Horticulture

In this report I am going to write a brief history about farming, write about organic and conventional horticulture and their advantages and disadvantages and which I feel is possibly the best of both to arrive at my conclusion.

Horticulture is basically the science of growing fruits, vegetables, herbs, nuts and ornamental plants e.g. trees, shrubs and flowers. It also includes plant conservation, landscape garden design, construction and maintenance of arboriculture.

HISTORY OF HORTICULTURE

Horticulture dates back hundreds and hundreds of years ago, The origins of horticulture lie in the transition of human communities from nomadic hunter-gatherers collecting seeds, nuts, berries to taming animals and cultivating a variety of crops on a

However one of the hunter gatherers diet which used between 100 and 200 pant species in season was reduced and replaced by a dependence on fewer plants that grow best in the local area, changing from a mainly meat diet to one high in carbohydrates and plant nutrients led to famine, nutritional diseases and crowded living conditions which led to the plague and pestilence. By the third millennium archaeological evidence shows that vegetable and fruit crops were enclosed and those vegetables were grown in rows and were watered by irrigation.

This means that the organic garden is natural, it introduces predators and natural wildlife and doesn’t cause any harm to the earth. It has better nutrition, organic foods grown are richer in nutrients and they taste better than conventionally grown foods. It costs less there is no spending on fertilizers, pest controls or weed killers. For fertilizers organic gardeners use compost, which is made of grass clippings, leaves and kitchen food scraps from fruit and vegetables. Organic gardeners also use “chicken pellets” from chickens that are organically fed, this feeds the soil and gives it the nutrients it need for plant growing. Organic insecticidal soaps and sprays are homemade from strong herbs and these help ward off infestations. There are some forms of chemicals used in organic horticulture, mainly pesticides and herbicides and some of them are more poisonous than the conventional ones. Although there can be some disadvantages to organic horticulture, it can be time and labour intensive, it takes time to create the correct soil for growing. There can be lower yields; compost is a slow release method of nutrition delivery so plants are usually smaller than conventional