Horticulture: Books & Ebooks

"In this insightful volume, readers investigate a wide range of jobs and responsibilities, including landscape architects and designers concentrating on community planning, environmental restoration, or therapeutic gardens; landscapers working at nurseries and greenhouses, golf courses, sports complexes (as turf specialists), and gardening TV shows; and arborists earning their living as tree surgeons at arboreta and botanical gardens. Such practical details as job preparation and training, professional certification, networking, compiling a rsum, and the pros and cons of being your own boss are considered."

Gardening is now the favorite leisure pastime in America. Homeowners are realizing the health benefits derived from gardening and the increase in their home's property value. This book contains easy-to-use advice on the top landscape plant choices. It also recommends specific varieties, and provides advice on how to plant, how to grow and how to care for the best plants.

"This major new textbook brings the science and practice of vegetable production right up to date by addressing modern culture techniques and the recent challenges of consumer demand facing producers today. It introduces vegetable production from the perspective of producing high quality produce that satisfies the needs of the modern consumer. Beginning with the basics of how vegetables are grown using high and low input methods, including organic and sustainable production techniques, the book goes on to introduce and discuss many topics covered less comprehensively in older texts, including Good Agricultural Practices to improve quality, reduce biological contamination and secure food safety; water management; cropping systems; plasticulture; protected culture and mineral nutrition. Vegetable Production and Practices also introduces the use of molecular biology for genetic improvement of crops. Issues specific to individual vegetable crops are addressed by family, including their diseases, harvesting, quality attributes and other issues of increasing importance to consumers, including the role of vegetables in human health. Professor Gregory E. Welbaum has a long history of teaching successful courses in horticulture at Virginia Tech and other universities in the US and worldwide."

"Vascular Transport in Plants provides an up-to-date synthesis of new research on the biology of long distance transport processes in plants. It is a valuable resource and reference for researchers and graduate level students in physiology, molecular biology, physiology, ecology, ecological physiology, development, and all applied disciplines related to agriculture, horticulture, forestry and biotechnology. The book considers long-distance transport from the perspective of molecular level processes to whole plant function, allowing readers to integrate information relating to vascular transport across multiple scales."

"Water Use Efficiency for Irrigated Turf and Landscape provides a logical and scientifically sound approach to irrigation in urban areas in Australia. It is based on green space delivering defined outcomes using the principles of water sensitive urban design and irrigation efficiency.The book covers all stages of the water pathway - from the source to delivery into the plant root zone. Major topics include system planning, estimating water demand, water quality, irrigation systems, soil management and irrigation performance evaluation. Clearly presented explanations are included, as well as line drawings and worked examples, and a plant water use database covering more than 250 plant species."

Climatic variations often tend to have adverse effect on the yield and production of crops. Efforts have, therefore, been on for harnessing this natural resource through artificial means for increasing crop productivity. One such technology is protected cultivation. This technique is well adopted in Europe and USA and now China and Japan are leading in controlled sphere production of horticultural crops. In India, the technology is making breakthrough in Karnataka and Maharashtra in protected cultivation of pepper, tomato, cucumber, muskmelon, baby corn etc. Precision farming is defined as the cultivation by adopting technologies which give maximum precision in production of a superior crop with a desired yield levels and quality at competitive production. These include use of genetically modified crop varieties, micropropagation, integrated nutrient, water and pest managements, protected cultivation, organic farming, hi-tech horticulture, and post harvest technology. Post-harvest sector needs lot of precision. Peels, rags, etc. go waste. Many times, peels being rich in polyphenols, colouring pigment, nutrients etc are richer in antioxidant than what we actually eat. Here, we need precision. Precision in management, precision in product diversification, precision in value addition are much sought after aspect.