Horticulture is the specialized branch of agriculture focused on the intensive cultivation, management, and improvement of garden crops, including fruits, vegetables, ornamentals, and landscape plants. As a human activity, it integrates plant propagation, breeding, nutrition, protection, and postharvest handling to optimize yield, quality, and aesthetic or functional traits. Horticultural practice encompasses controlled-environment production (e.g., greenhouses), field systems, and urban or peri-urban landscapes, often involving high-value, labor- and knowledge-intensive cropping. It plays a key role in diversifying agroecosystems, supporting dietary quality, and providing plant material for ecological restoration, amenity planting, and research on plant physiology and genetics.
A few years ago, Austin Wrenn noticed something unsettling in his strawberry greenhouses at Wrenn's Farm in Zebulon, North Carolina. He was one of the first growers in the state to experience losses from an unexpected, aggressive ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 3, 2026
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When it comes to drought stress, timing can be the difference between saving a crop and losing it, whether in a greenhouse or in the high-stakes environment of future space missions. In a recent study published in Plant Phenomics, ...
Space Exploration
Jul 1, 2026
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The burgeoning East Coast broccoli industry is helping lower costs slightly and reduce reliance on the drought-prone West. Those were findings from a new supply chain model study that showed expanding production outside California—the ...
Agriculture
Jun 30, 2026
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As drought and water uncertainty put increasing pressure on orchard systems, researchers at the USDA Agricultural Research Service's Appalachian Fruit Research Station in Kearneysville, West Virginia, launched a study in ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 26, 2026
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A new study from scientists at Purdue University reports that far-red radiation, in combination with increased carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentration, significantly enhances biomass production in young leaf lettuce grown under ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 26, 2026
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Two complementary studies, appearing in HortScience, from Rutgers University are advancing the potential of amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) as a valuable leafy green by combining detailed morphological characterization with evaluations ...
Biotechnology
Jun 22, 2026
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Researchers from Texas A&M AgriLife are sending hundreds of grape seeds to the International Space Station, where the seeds will spend approximately six months exposed to cosmic radiation before returning to Earth for planting ...
Space Exploration
Jun 18, 2026
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A study led by researchers from the Department of Microbiology at the University of Malaga has revealed how organic farming—using natural substances and processes and avoiding the use of synthetic chemicals—can, in the long ...
Ecology
May 21, 2026
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A new study, conducted by researchers from the Netherlands and Germany, estimates that urban agriculture in European cities could produce up to 20 million tons of vegetables annually, representing roughly one-third of the ...
Agriculture
Apr 28, 2026
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Results recently published in the journal Plant and Soil by the researchers of the Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ) show that strip tillage combined with rye mulch can maintain stable yields of white ...
Agriculture
Apr 23, 2026
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