Agriculture

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What is horticulture?

This is a common question that confronts both students and workers in plant agriculture.

Indeed, it is important to be able to distinguish between the two main divisions of crop production, horticulture, and agronomy, in order to acquire a better theoretical understanding and skills in either specialized field.

The proper delineation of the two divisions will likewise facilitate efforts in research and development directed at certain groups of plants.

What is horticulture
Production of spices and vegetables is under horticulture

However, it is quite impossible to give an exact definition of horticulture.

Neither is it easy to enumerate its scope with definiteness.

Nonetheless, substantial enlightenment on the concept, scope, and definition of horticulture can be obtained from the writing of various authorities in the field.

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What Is Grafting? Uses in Addition to Plant Propagation

What is grafting in plants?

In crop farming or crop agriculture, grafting is most commonly referred to as an artificial, vegetative method of plant propagation.

However, as a technique or procedure, it has many other uses.

The term is also applied in animals and in humans as in skin grafting.

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Crop Info and How-to Guide in Growing Pummelo

Pummelo (Citrus maxima), otherwise spelled pommelo and pomelo and also called in various countries as shaddock, pamplemoussier, jeruk besar, jeruk bali, jambua, limau betawi, limau bali, muli, som-o, ma-o, shouk-ton-oh, suha, lukban, kabugaw and buongon, is a popular fruit crop of the Orient.

It has the biggest fruit among the citrus species.

It is closely related, and its world production data is always associated, to the grapefruit (Citrus x paradisi), the only major citrus fruit that originated outside of Southeast Asia.

In Southeast Asia, pummelo is grown in home gardens, in mixed citrus orchards, and in pure pummelo orchards.

The Philippines classify it as a high-value cash crop.

For 2008, the top 10 world producers of grapefruit (including pomelos) are the USA, China, Mexico, South Africa, India, Argentina, Turkey, Cuba, Brazil, and Tunisia (FAOSTAT, 2010).

Data presented by Ganjun (2009) show that China produced 540,546 tons in 60,060 ha, yielding an average of 9 tons per hectare.

90 percent was produced for domestic consumption.

There are reports, however, that a single tree can yield 70-100 fruits per year which is equivalent to 20 tons/ha per year (Verheij and Coronel, 1992).

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What Is Mendel’s Law of Segregation, How Was It Derived?

The Mendelian Principle or Law of Segregation, also called Mendel’s First Law, has been stated in the following manner: a hybrid between two parents differing in a set of characters possesses both parental factors which subsequently separate (segregate) in the gametes.

This genetic principle, along with complete dominance, modified the early belief that heredity is purely a “blending” process in which the offspring exhibits a character that is intermediate between the two parents.

Originating from Gregor Mendel’s historic research work with the garden pea, the law established that the transmission of traits from parents to progeny is carried by elementary units, which he called a factor, in a uniform, predictable fashion.

This “factor” is now called gene or, with reference to those in the same gene pair but carries the blueprint for contrasting characteristics, alleles.

This Law of Segregation is one of two laws Mendel formulated providing for the fundamental rules in the transmission of traits from parents to progeny.

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Monocots, Dicots, and Eudicots Distinguished

The monocots or monocotyledons are plants that comprise a common ancestor and all its descendants.

Also called Monocotyledoneae or Liliopsida, they are flowering plants under phylum Anthophyta (also called Magnoliophyta or Angiospermae) of the kingdom Plantae.

They include the grasses (also referred to as gramineous or graminaceous plants) which may be considered as the most important of all the families of plants (Simpson 2010).

Aside from the monocots, the other members of the angiosperms used to be the traditionally described dicots or dicotyledons.

In other words, the angiospermous plants used to be divided into two distinct classes: the monocotyledons or Monocotyledoneae, and the dicotyledons or Dicotyledoneae.

The dicots therefore comprised of all non-monocot angiosperms.

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What Is Budding, Its Advantages and Basic Procedures

Budding, often called bud grafting, is an artificial method of asexual or vegetative propagation in plants.

Like grafting, this method is employed to convert one plant (the rootstock) into another plant type with desirable characteristics.

Similarly, the resulting plants, in general, have shortened stature and maturity as compared to plants propagated from seed.

This method of plant propagation has the advantage of producing numerous clones from a single piece of stem or twig, each node being a potential source of the one-budded scion.

But in grafting, this same piece of the stem may account for only a single scion.

It is therefore advantageous where there is a limited source of plant cuttings or scions for grafting.

Likewise, the necessity of transporting bulky scions is eliminated.

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How to Grow Soursop, That Fruit Crop With Multiple Uses and Ever-Increasing Market Potential

Soursop (Annona muricata L.), also known as graviola, guyabano, guayabano guanabano and babana, is a shrub or small tree 3-10 meters in height.

It is adapted to warm, humid tropical climates, and can tolerate both drought conditions and partial shade.

The fruit consists of about 67.5% edible white pulp with a pleasing fragrance and flavor. It is a good source of vitamins B and C with some calcium and phosphorus.

It has numerous uses.

The young green fruits with seeds that are still soft can be cooked as vegetables.

When ripe, the flesh can be eaten off-hand or as dessert, or processed into candies, jams and jelly. Its juice is used for flavoring or packaged into refreshing guyabano drinks.

The leaves are used as herbal medicine.

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8 Methods of Budding Described

There are several techniques or methods of budding. The procedures on the common methods are described below:

1. T- or Shield Budding

A budding method in which incisions are made in the bark of the rootstock to form the shape of a letter “T” with one horizontal cut and another downward cut that originates from the center of the first cut.

A bud piece or shield piece containing a bud is prepared with an upward cut that includes a thin layer of wood from about 1.25 cm (½ in) below the bud.

A horizontal cut is then made about 2 cm (¾ in) above the bud to remove the shield piece from the budstick.

This piece of bark has the shape of an ancient elongated shield, with a curved lower end and a horizontal top.

The shield piece, generally with the thin piece of wood attached, is inserted into the T-cut from the horizontal cut down.

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Crop Info and How-to Guide in Growing Lanzones

Lanzones, also known as langsat, is here used as a generic term for the fruit crop which is scientifically named Lansium domesticum (family Meliaceae).

However, langsat is commonly used also to refer to a particular type or form.

L. domesticum is a complex plant species having many variants, with wild and cultivated forms which are generally parthenocarpic and in which apomixis is common.

Lanzones is a tree that grows up to a height of about 30 meters with a trunk 75 cm in diameter.

However, cultivated trees are only 5-10 m in height.

Inflorescences bearing perfect flowers emerge from the trunk and largest branches.

The fruit is a berry with 1-3 seeds, enveloped by a fleshy aril. Some cells may consist of aril tissue without developed seeds.

The fruit is always eaten fresh by squeezing it until the skin splits, and then the arils, which may have or without seeds, are freed from their segments.

Those whitish arils are the ones that are eaten.

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