Horticultural
Societies
Emily
Becky
Chelsea
What is horticulture?
 Horticulture
is the domestication of plants
 Domestication is the “taming” of plants
and animals in order to control their
availability for human use
Important Definitions
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In addition there are two more key definitions
to understand with this unit;
Extensive Horticulture: The use of a large area
of land for farming as farmers move to new
plots once old ones have be exhausted
Intensive Horticulture: Use of technologies, like
irrigation and fertilizers, to allow farmers to
concentrate farming in a smaller area
Extensive Horticulture
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Extensive Horticulture
Known as the “slash-and-burn” style
Common in forest regions
Consists of cutting down a portion of land with
hand tools then burning the logs and under bush
The benefits are that the newly plants crops will
have the nutrients from the ashes
Once the land is depleted of nutrients the farmers
will move to a new plot and repeat the same
process
This process requires so much land that the farmers
have to keep creating new plots
Intensive Horticulture
 Intensive
Horticulture
 Uses less land because it uses more
technologies that allow the farmers to
have more concentrated areas
 Early on these technologies included;
irrigation, fertilizers, and simple ploughs
 This allowed for the same plots to be
reused each year
Horticulture has dramatically
effected the amount of land
used. Instead of travelling over
massive amounts of land
searching for whatever food
grows in that region, people
are able have concentrated
areas of a desirable plant. This
allows for the farmers to be in
control of the produce/plants.
As an end result enough food is
able to be produced to
support a greater number of
people on a much smaller area
of land.
Questions
 What
is the difference between extensive
horticulture and intensive horticulture?
 Define horticulture and how does
domestication relate to it?
 How has horticulture changed over the
years?