Floriculture

Floriculture (from Latin: floris + culture) is the study of the efficient production of the plants that produce showy, colourful and even edible flowers and foliage. It is a commercially successful branch of horticulture and agriculture found throughout the world. Efficient production practices have been developed over the years, for the hundreds of plant taxa used in the floral industry, increasing the overall knowledge of whole plant biology. Plant breeding and selection have produced tens of thousands of new genotypes for human use.

Flowers are an important part of human society that are often used at times of joy and sadness, and as a part of everyday life. Flowers and plants may be indoors in a sunny window, as part of the landscape in the front yard or on the patio or deck in the back yard. People have been studying flowers and plants and their interaction with humans and how to produce these flowers and plants so all humans can enjoy them. Floriculture scientists throughout the world to do this work.

Floriculture crops include cut flowers and cut cultivated greens, bedding plants (garden flowers or annuals, and perennials, houseplants (foliage plants and flowering potted plants). These plants are produced in ground beds, flower fields or in containers in a greenhouse. Protected cultivation is often used because these plants have a high value to humans.

Flower crops are grown in simple to highly sophisticated ways. These crops can be grown in soil in farm fields or in field soil in inexpensive high tunnel greenhouses. For years, flowers were grown, seasonally for the specific crop, close to the market in Europe, North America and Asia. However, many crops of the floral industry have moved to a specific climate, typically in the mountains of South America, Africa and China, so certain plants can be grown year around where hand labor is available.

Protected horticulture (greenhouses) has developed simultaneously with the continued changes in the flower crops and markets. Floriculture is a major component of controlled-environment agriculture (CEA). Floriculture crops have a high value to humans, so the cost of an expensive production system - greenhouses, automated environmental control, automated irrigation and fertilization, robotic seed, transplant and container handling, supplemental photosynthetic lighting - is necessary to produce these plants efficiently for the world-wide markets. Some are irrigated manually, but most are irrigated with drip irrigation, boom irrigation or flood floors. Hydroponics can be used for many cut flower crops.

.== Floriculture value 2022 == The global Floriculture market size is estimated to be worth US$50.04 billion in 2022 and is forecast to be a readjusted size of US$58.03 billion by 2028 with a compound annual growth rate of 2.5% during the review period.

The total wholesale value of sales across all U.S. floriculture crops totaled US$6.69 billion in 2022 from 8,951 floriculture producers with a production area of 833 million square feet.

Plant enthusiasts and growers learned significant details about growing certain plants over the years. Chrysanthemums have been cultivated in China for over 3000 years, so growers knew about the plant and how to grow it. Floriculture scientists have simply continued this trend to control the plant's environment to control flowering for the significant dates when humans want flowers for celebrations and gatherings.