A Career In Horticulture

Horticulture involves the knowledge of growing fruits, vegetables, garden plants and flowers. The location could be a small garden at home or may even be a part of the house. Some people learn horticulture to create a beautiful garden of their own as a hobby or way to make the home look more appealing.

-How To Become A Horticulturist?

Many universities and colleges offer certificates in horticulture. A certificate makes a business operation more credible. To be a horticulturist, you need to be knowledgeable in Chemistry, Botany, soil types, written and oral communication, plant pests and diseases and business management. The courses provide information on health benefits, food safety, gardening-techniques and ecologically sound lawns.

Job Opportunities

Professional Horticulturists can work in different areas such as:
-Production: Managing a landscape service, greenhouse, vegetable farm, orchard, flower or plant shop, garden center, nursery or processing firm.
-Landscape Design, Installation and Maintenance: Designing and planting plans with shrubs, trees, ground cover, turf grass and herbaceous ornaments.
-Marketing: Wholesale or retail sale of gardening supplies, seeds, processed or fresh vegetables, floral arrangements and house plants. You can manage the marketing for a government, private companies, chain stores or wholesale distributors.
-Research: You can work as a researcher to improve the yield and quality of vegetables, fruits, flowers and ornamental plants and develop methods for storing, handling and marketing them. You can specialize in plant nutrition, plant breeding, plant growth regulation with chemicals and similar interesting areas of plant research.
-Pest Management: After training, you can work with central and state regulatory agencies, processing corporations, large farm organizations, agricultural agents and even agricultural suppliers.
-Industry services and growing Horticultural Crops: Trained Horticulturists are employed in Seed Firms, pesticide material manufacturing, manufacturing of fertilizers, freezing and canning companies and landscape or farm equipment management.
-Inspection: Trained horticulturists are usually employed in government or private agencies as inspectors and to manage uniformity in the production and quality.
-Communication: Written collateral for agricultural or gardening magazines, television and radio and newspapers can be a rewarding field too.

Job Of A Horticulturist

- Plant preparation for retail and wholesale nurseries.
- Specialized plant production.
- Develop and manage outdoor spaces like resorts, hotels and sports complexes.
- Work for the park departments under the local authorities.
- Administer large department stores or businesses associated with the agriculture industry.

Horticulturists often work with town planners, landscape architects, engineers, and environmental conservationists. The horticulturist works towards building a better and beautiful environment and a higher quality of life through improvement, beautification and conservation.

Horticultural scientists or people with a university degree in Horticulture work for various agricultural research institutes, where they conduct research on vegetables, fruits, flowers and the grape and wine preparations in different rainfall regions. They are also involved in the marketing of horticultural products and agricultural extensions.

Job Market For The Horticulturist

With the emergence of a number of environmental issues, the job market has expanded for fruit, vegetable and environmental horticulturists, as extension specialists, research workers, teachers, scientists and professors. Horticulturists are employed as marketing managers, production superintendents, inventory controllers, landscape maintenance specialists, buyers, landscape supervisors, bedding plant producers, education coordinators and research assistants.