CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
ORNAMENTAL PLANTS AND CASH CROPS
Yunusa Audu
15.1 SCOPE AND CONCEPT
Gardening which was only an art and science in the earlier days has now emerged as a huge industry. With the importance and need of gardening in improving and conserving the environment being strongly felt now, the concept of landscaping and gardening is growing rapidly. Ornamental gardening and landscaping has expanded as a multi-faceted industry encompassing activities such as propagating and rearing ornamental plants, landscaping, production of growing media, pots and other accessories, etc., generating huge employment opportunities and simultaneously promoting activities that would improve the environment.
15.2 Introduction
Botany is the field of basics science dealing with the study and inquiry in to the forms, function, development, diversities, reproduction, evolution and uses of plants and their interaction within the biosphere. It also includes the investigation of their uses and the other parameters of importance wherever found (Liddell & Scott 1940)
Economic botany: Is the study of relationship between people (individuals and cultures) and plants. Economic botany intersects many field including established discipline such as Agronomy, anthropology, archeology, chemistry economic, ethnobotany, forestry, horticulture, pharmacognosy and pharmacology etc. (Arber 1928)
15.3 Ornamental Plants
Are all those plants which are cultivated with the main aim of being marketed and used for decorative purposes. With a few exceptions (such are the flowers of daylilies Haemerocallis or those of nasturtiums Tropaeolum) they are not edible, or at least, not used primarily as food sources. It is justified by the fact that ornamental plants are, and have always been, an indispensable part of human life: planted outdoors, they improve our environment, while in indoor use they contribute to our health, well-being and creativity (Saraswathi et al., 2018)
Method of Cultivation: protected cultivation and open-ground cultivation.
According to the application, the two main groups are plants used for indoor decoration and plants used for outdoor decoration.
Protected cultivation (plants grown and used mainly for indoor decoration), subdivided to:
§ Cut flowers e.g. roses, carnations, chrysanthemums (dendranthemums), gerberas, lilies etc.
§ Cut foliage
§ Pot plants (flowering pot plants and foliage pot plants) e.g. bonsaic, cacti and ficus
§ Bedding plants and balcony plants (annual, biennial and partially perennial ornamentals, grown under cover but used mainly outdoors) e.g. marigold and petunias
Open ground cultivation (plants grown mainly for outdoor decoration or as a starting material for protected cultivation), with a further subdivision as follows:
§ Woody nursery stocks (deciduous trees and shrubs, broadleaved evergreens, climbers, and conifers, grown either in the field or in containers),
§ Herbaceous perennials (usually container- or pot-grown in perennial nurseries),
§ Rose bushes (grown in specialized rose-nurseries),
§ Flower bulbs, corms, and tubers (grown for forcing in greenhouses or for planting out in the open),
§ Open-ground cut flowers and cut foliage,
§ Dried flowers, and
§ Some bedding plants, grown (or finished) in the open.
15.3.1 Importance of Ornamental Plants
Ornamental trees, shrubs and flowers have various uses, hence their importance for our well-being.
1. Landscaping: flowers are used to beautify residential and office buildings as well as playground, the plants whose flowers are attractive, colorfuland sweet smelling are used for this purpose.
2. Oxygen Production: The fundamental benefit provided by plants is their production of oxygen; thus providing the atmosphere with the element that allows humans to breathe and live on this planet.
3. Carbon Sinks: Plants take in carbon dioxide and convert it to carbohydrates (sugars). These sugars provide the plant with energy to grow. As the plant or parts of the plant die, the decomposition of the plant material returns the carbon to both the soil and the atmosphere.
4. Urban Shade, Green Space and Location of Plants: Ornamental shrubs and trees such as Odan-ficus spp and almond tree can be strategically located to engineer a more pleasant environment in which to live. They can be placed around pools to provide shade but also to reduce the glare that is reflected up to surrounding buildings; they can be placed in front of houses to prevent lights from vehicles or the street shining into the house; and they can also play a role in reducing noise from highways.
5. 5. Wind break: Closely spaced tall ornamental shrub and trees are usually planted close to buildings to act as wind break and add beauty of the areas.eg teak,Ashoka (police tree)
6. Screening and delineation of areas: Ornamental plant can be used to screen a place such as house from the prying eyes of strangers and also used to delineate area from one another by using it for demarcation.
7. Decoration: Live fresh flowers put in vases are used to decorate living rooms Some putted ornamental plants are raised and placed at the porches of the houses or offices at wedding, funeral, workshop seminars beautiful flowers are used for decoration, thus adding color to the occasion.
8. Indoor Air Quality Improvement: Ornamental Plants continue to function as atmospheric filters indoors as they do outdoors and enhance the air quality of confined environments.
9. Water Management and Erosion Control (retention, filtration, purification, flood control): Ornamental plants can also remove pollution through filtration and purification processes and can also assist in flood control by retaining water.
10. Wildlife Attraction, Preservation and Biodiversity: Ornamental plants can also provide environments that encourage the presence of wildlife both during production of the plant (e.g. Christmas trees and other nurseries) and at the end use in the garden or parkland (Saraswathi et al., 2018).
15.4 Cash Crop
A cash crop or profit crop it is an agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. The cash crop is equated with plantation of crop such as coffee, tea, cotton, cocoa, tobacco, oilseed, and fruits etc. The term is used to differential marketed crops from subsistence crops, which are those fed to the producers own family or livestock feed. Thus, cash crops may be placed on a continuum, from pure home consumption to pure cash crop. Cash crops are sold on domestic markets and foreign markets (Reeves & Weihrauch, 1979). Cash crops are usually crops which attract demand in more developed nation, and hence have export value.
15.4.1 Types of Cash Crop
Cash crop is distinguished in to two types. First, crops that are exclusively grown for sale, which include crops that are non-food, such as cotton, coffee, tobacco, cocoa or tea. Second, crops that are produced with a ‘marketable surplus’, which include food crops that may be consumed by the household or sold on markets, such as Guinea corn, rice, millet and maize, but also certain fruits and vegetables (Reeves & Weihrauch, 1979).
15.4.2 Importance of Cash Crop
· Income generation
· Generation of employment
· It promotes economic diversification
Summary
Botany is the field of basics science dealing with the study and inquiry in to the forms, function, development, reproduction and uses of plants and their interaction on earth. Economic botany, is a science that deal with the study of plants and it relationship between people in the environment. Economic botany intersects many fields including established discipline such as Agronomy, anthropology, archeology, ethnobotany, forestry, horticulture etc. Economic botany is catogorised in to Ornamental plants and cash crops. Ornamental plants these are plants that are mainly cultivated for market and decoration purpose e.g. roses, cacti and ficus etc. while cash crop are crops that cultivated to generating profit not for household consumption only. These crops are usually attract demand and also have export value. e.g. Coffee, rice, groundnut, maize, cotton, tobacco and tea. These plants are of great importance for our living, as it act as sources of income generation, sources food we eat, provision of employments and also promotes economic diversification, provision of oxygen, landscaping, carbon dioxide sink and decoration (Armitage, 1994)
References
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