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.
Tea (Camellia sinensis) is an important cash crop and the most widely consumed beverage in the world. The global tea industry, particularly the booming Pu'er market, has increasingly relied on converting forests to monoculture ...
Ecology
Aug 1, 2025
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42
A sensor that can measure hormone concentrations in plants precisely and in real time with minimal damage can shed light on how hormones affect plants' response to disease and stress. With further development, it could also ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 21, 2025
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32
The future of sustained space habitation depends on our ability to grow fresh food away from Earth. The revolutionary new collaborative Moon-Rice project is using cutting-edge experimental biology to create an ideal future ...
Agriculture
Jul 9, 2025
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21
Farming methods that support nature improve both biodiversity and crop yields, but more extensive measures may require increased government subsidies to become as profitable as conventional intensive agriculture. That is ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 2, 2025
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55
Tools that offer early and accurate insight into plant health—and allow individual plant interventions—are key to increasing crop yields as environmental pressures increasingly impact horticulture and agriculture.
Biotechnology
Jun 11, 2025
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69
Advanced technologies enable the controlled release of medicine to specific cells in the body. Scientists argue these same technologies must be applied to agriculture if growers are to meet increasing global food demands.
Bio & Medicine
Jun 6, 2024
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202
Researchers from the Disruptive & Sustainable Technologies for Agricultural Precision (DiSTAP) Interdisciplinary Research Group (IRG) of Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT's research enterprise ...
Nanomaterials
Sep 2, 2021
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90
Urea is a critical element found in everything from fertilizers to skin care products. Large-scale production of urea, which is naturally a product of human urine, is a massive undertaking, making up about 2% of global energy ...
Bio & Medicine
Jul 14, 2021
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