HORTICULTURE

Horticulture and Weed Science - The Need for Improvement

Horticulture and Weed Science

Introduction

For fruit crops, weed management is essential because it allows the farmers to obtain maximum production. This is because the mere presence of unwanted weed and plants significantly decreases the overall yield of crops. In addition to this, weeds also have an adverse effect on the quality of the crop. This is particularly because they compete with fruit crops for lighty, water, and several essential nutrients that are found in the soil and in fertilizer (Retamales & Hancock, 2012). Moreover, in cases where weed infestation has reached an alarming rate, plants face a lot of competition for sufficient rooting area and this has a major impact on the management cost (University of California, 2007). Hence, an effective mechanism for controlling the growth of weeds around horticultural crops is necessary for improving the production of fruits and various minimizing control costs.

The food that is produced through horticulture is good for human health and well being. It has positive impact on environment, sociology and medicine. The produce of horticulture has both food and non food uses. These uses range from a variety of personal and social usages. The purpose of horticulture is to improve the growth of plants, their yields, the nutritional value they contain, their ability to resist diseases and the stress that their cultivation may put upon the environment. There are various professionals associated with horticulture (Getter, 2012, p. 56). These include designers, gardeners, technical advisors, growers and therapists.

Saint Rosalia Agricultural and Forestry Ltd. is a renowned enterprise that oversees the cultivation of three types of weeds, namely, Partheniumhysterophorus L., Lantana camara L. and Eichhorniacrassipes (Mart.) Solms-Laubach. Among these, Parthenium hysterophorus is a certain flowering plant specie which is related to the aster family. The Asteraceae is a family of glowering plans that are native to the American tropics. The weed has had a significant effect on the output level of crops and, in certain areas, an outbreak has almost taken epidemic proportions.

On the other hand, Lantana camara or Spanish Flag is a flowering plant specie belongs to the verbena family. The Verbenaceae is native to the tropics of America. It has been introduced into other parts of the world as an ornamental plant and is considered an invasive species in many tropical and sub-tropical areas. These weeds are the cause of several problems such as Parthenium weed which is an extremely prolific weed that has the ability to spread quickly and colonize areas. The problem with the second type of weed is that it will not disappear easily. it reappears at a very high rate.

Methods

The material for the research was collected using data available online. There is already a suffieicnt amount of data available online regarding the weeds covered in this paper and a range of online journals were able to provide access to the types of crops that these weeds are generally present in. With the help of these journals the research was able to determine that crops that ...