But what exactly is horticulture? It’s the technical term that refers to the field and science of plant development, which includes everything from care and manufacture of trees and shrubs to genetic alterations to typical produce to keep it fresh and free from bruising, such as many tomatoes sold in the United States.

The industry has eight subcategories which deal with more specific aspects of horticulture. Arboriculture deals with vines, shrubbery, trees, and other woody plants. This includes areas of research, planting, and care of all these types of foliage. Floriculture similarly deals with flowers and floral crops.

Landscape horticulture deals with the production and maintenance of plants involved in landscaping in all areas and climates. Olericulture and Pomology deal with vegetables and fruits, respectively. Viticulture refers more specifically to the production and marketing of grapes (as to wineries).

Postharvest physiology also at times crosses into the field of food science, as it tries to develop means of preventing spoilage and damage to all of the horticultural crops–including fruits and vegetables.

Fortunately, horticulture is the name of an industry that requires varied talents from many types of people. Engineers, inspectors, business managers, scientists and researchers, geneticists, and teachers are just a few of the workers needed in most areas of horticulture.

The industry is not only a stable one–it is growing. As I mentioned, many who enjoy the study of food science may actually find a rewarding career in horticulture. So how does an individual go on to become a horticulturalist?

Well, while your education is still in process, you can start with basic jobs that may seem menial or unrelated. Check out local floral shops, greenhouses, or gardening departments in hardware stores. You can even get involved in landscape design! All of these will help you begin to build a fundamental, practical knowledge of plants.

Do your research on the education level required for entry-level positions in the field you are most interested. Would you like to be a teacher, or would you prefer getting into advertising and marketing? Contact local firms or institutions; you might even ask about future hiring plans.

Decide which area of horticulture you would like to go into, and begin gearing your own education toward that particular division of the industry. Many institutions offer undergraduate degrees in horticulture, so from there, you should try to take classes which are tailored toward your area of interest.

Whenever there are speakers in your area, go and listen to them so that you might hear any words of wisdom they have to impart. Other than that, good luck–it’s a booming field, and the work is both helpful and rewarding!

Holbee Productions http://www.frederickrice.com/ horticultural speaker and lecturer, garden Designer and consultant. Art Gib is a freelance writer.

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‘Hungarian nobleman leaves indelible mark’

Agoston Haraszthy made an impression wherever he went. After serving as a member of the Royal Hungarian Guards of Francis I, Emperor of Austria-Hungary in 1830, he was forced to flee Europe for fear of being branded a revolutionist.
In 1842, he returned to Hungary and convinced his father to liquidate their considerable holdings so the entire family could immigrate to America. When they arrived in Sauk City, Wisconsin, they were among the best-capitalized immigrants of the 19th century.
Along with his other entrepreneurial investments, Haraszthy began agricultural experiments and achieved considerable success in sheep raising and growing hops.
Even with his considerable success, he was still disappointed at not being able to establish the high quality vineyards of his native Hungary. The tug of the western frontier pulled at the Haraszthy family, and they headed, by wagon train, to California in 1848.
Agoston was the wagon master of the train, which included about sixty immigrants. Without serious incident, the wagon train arrived at Warner Hot Springs, in San Diego County.
Colonel Jonathan Warner, a former militiaman who established Warner Hot Springs in 1844, apprised Haraszthy about the agriculture and the politics in the San Diego area. A scant 650 people, mainly vaqueros, Yankee sailors who had jumped ship, and a few Mormon soldiers from the Mormon Battalion populated San Diego.

Haraszthy’s family now included his wife, six children, his father and stepmother, and Thomas W. Sutherland, former U.S. Attorney for Wisconsin Territory, who was now Haraszthy’s stepbrother.
The Polish immigrant purchased a plot of land adjacent to San Luis Rey Mission, and, with his sons, Attila and Arpad, first planted a large fruit orchard. He later bought 160 acres more in Mission Valley and planted peach and cherry trees sent to him from New York State.
Haraszthy never ceased his investment activity as well as his interest in community politics. With Don Juan Bandini, Haraszthy set up the first regularly scheduled omnibus transit system and established a livery stable. He established a very profitable butcher shop.
With other real estate speculators, he helped establish the subdivision of Middletown. Haraszthy Street existed there until the early 1960s when it was wiped from the map by the construction of Interstate 5.

When San Diego County was chartered in 1850, Haraszthy was elected the first City Marshall, while his father, Charles, was elected Magistrate and Land Commissioner. His stepbrother, Tom Sutherland, became San Diego’s first City Attorney.
In 1851, he was elected to the State Assembly and resigned his other offices. While in the legislature, then meeting in Vallejo, Haraszthy succeeded in getting funding for the expansion of San Diego Harbor and the county’s first public hospital.
He was the first legislator to introduce legislation to divide California into two states; North and South. Because of powerful political interest in Northern California, that bill died.
All the while, Haraszthy continued searching for land more suitable for agriculture than San Diego’s subtropical desert land offered. Early in 1852, he purchased 210 acres near San Francisco’s Mission Dolores. He moved the entire family there at the end of the Assembly Session.
Haraszthy’s noteworthy accomplishments didn’t stop. He introduced the “Zinfandel” red wine grape and the “Muscat of Alexandria” raisin grape to California.
He invented an efficient gold refining process, and was founding partner in the Eureka Gold and Silver Refining Company. The firm became one of the major contract refiners for the San Francisco Mint.

Because of his reputation for fairness and honesty, Haraszthy was appointed Assayer of the Mint in 1855.
He developed the first large, high-quality grape vineyard at Crystal Springs in San Mateo County. At this new ranch, Haraszthy designed and laid out a nursery and horticultural garden, which he named Los Flores.
With his son’s help, he planted fruit trees and shrubs imported from the east. At about this same time, he received a shipment of six choice rooted vines and 160 cuttings from Hungary.
In the shipment were two small bundles. One was the Muscat of Alexandria and the other was said to be the famous mystery grape, the Zinfandel. Today the Zinfandel is the most widely planted wine grape in California.
In 1857, while visiting General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo at the General’s Lachrima Montis estate, Haraszthy was introduced to the Sonoma Valley. This valley especially appealed to him because its weather, topography and soil were so similar to his Hungarian homeland’s high quality vineyards.
In Sonoma, he established the Szeptaj Estate (Buena Vista). That Buena Vista Winery is today a state park and historical site.

In 1861, He was appointed to a California commission to improve agricultural methods and to collect vines and fruit tree stocks in Europe. During a European tour with his son, Arpad, he purchased, with his own money, 100,000 grapevines representing 1,400 varieties, along with small selected lots of planting stock for olives, almonds, pomegranates, oranges, lemons and chestnuts.
When he returned, Harper & Brothers, of New York, published Haraszthy’s report, “Grape Culture, Wines and Wine Making upon Agriculture and Horticulture. It remained the winemaking classic authority in the English language until well into the 20th century.
The Haraszthy family planted vineyards for European immigrant friends and wine growers, including Charles Krug, Emile Dreser and Jacob Grundlach.
In 1863, Agoston’s sons Attila and Arpad Haraszthy were married in a double ceremony to the twin daughters of General Vallejo.
Later, after one of his wine cellars containing vintages of two years was destroyed by fire, Haraszthy traveled to Nicaragua where he bought a sugar plantation. There, he wife contacted yellow fever and died.
Agoston Haraszthy died July 6, 1869, near his estate, Hacienda San Antonio, at Corinto, Nicaragua, while trying to cross a crocodile infested rive.. His family believed that he fell into a river while attempting to cross and was dragged away by an alligator. His body was never found.

(Alton Pryor has been a writer for magazines, newspapers, and wire services. He worked for United Press International in their Sacramento Bureau, handling both printed press as well as radio news. He traveled the state as a field editor for California Farmer Magazine for 27 years. He is now the author of 10 books, primarily on California and western history. His books can be seen at http://www.stagecoachpublishing.com. Readers can email him at stagecoach@surewest.net.)

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There are colleges and universities offering certificates in the area of horticulture. Having a certificate to show potential clients gives you more credibility. Since consumers are encouraged to shop around before making a decision on such contract work be ready to answer their questions openly and honestly. Make sure you have references to offer the consumer or given them addresses of other work you have done that they can drive by and look at.

It can be challenging as a horticulturist to develop something that the consumer will be happy with. Communication is very important as is taking the time to draw up various options for the project before you begin. For your protection, always have a contract with the consumer regarding the plans they accepted, the deadline for completing the work, and any guarantees. You will want to outline your policy for complaints and other issues. Most horticulturists require a deposit or a percentage of the cost up front. Your contract should also include the price of the project.

While horticulture can be challenging, it is a great career opportunity for those who enjoy working outdoors. Having great communication and organization skills will help you as well. You will be required to do physical work that involves lifting and bending. You have the potential to earn a great amount of money as a horticulturist, from $4,000 to $8,500 per month depending on the types of jobs you do and the area you live in. For those who work for a horticulturist, the pay is about $11 to $22 per hour.

Find horticulture jobs at http://www.land-force.com/pages/viewCategory.aspx?id=7&catName=Horticulture

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So there are advantages but do the disadvantages outweigh the advantages?

It is ironic that when you need to water the garden the water butt is empty through lack of rainwater and when it is full you don’t need to water the garden because the same water that filled the butt has also refreshed the plants and foliage. It follows that the more it rains the less you need to water the garden and the more full the water butt becomes.

This has the potential for disaster as I discovered to my cost during a recent hydro-horticultural incident.

There are certain rules which must be observed when you are considering implementing a water storage policy.

Rule one – always raise the water butt high enough to get a watering can underneath it.
Rule two – make sure that it is on a level surface.
Rule three – if you ignore rule two then be ready for a tidal wave should the container succumb to the forces of gravity.

I returned home recently, after a long and showery day at work, to find my prize flower bed awash wih water and my once sparkling patio under three inches of soggy mud.

Water a horrible surprise – a real pain in the butt.

Mark Bates is a keen amateur gardener but has been the butt of many jokes regarding his water retention problems.

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The career outlook for a horticulture career is favorable. They make on average $25-$30 thousand a year. They work to upgrade crop yield, quality, nutritional value, and plant’s resistance to diseases, insects, and environmental stresses.

What’s in Horticulture?

Horticulture differs from agriculture in a sense that it uses as smaller scale of cultivation and uses smaller plots of mixed crops rather than a large field of single crop and the cultivation of a wider variation of crops, which usually includes trees. The study of horticulture includes eight areas that are grouped into two broad sections – the ornamentals and the edibles.

How is it Green?

Arboriculture refers to the study and selection, planting care and removal of individual threes, shrubs and other perennial woody plants. Floriculture includes the production and marketing of floral crops. Landscape horticulture encompasses the production, marketing, and maintenance of landscaping plants. Olericulture is the production and marketing of vegetables, Pomology is the production and marketing of fruits and Viticulture is the production and marketing of grapes. Last is the Postharvest Physiology, which involves maintaining quality and preventing spoilage of horticultural crops.

Horticulture is being practiced in gardens, plant growth centers, and nurseries. Work in nurseries includes preparing seeds and cutting to growing fully mature plants. These are usually sold or transferred to ornamental gardens or market gardens.

People who are interested in horticulture can find work in industry, government or educational institutions as well as private collections. The can work as cropping systems engineer or be a wholesale or retail business manager, propagators and tissue culture specialist for fruits, vegetables, ornamentals and turf; crop inspectors, crop production advisers, extension specialist, plant breeders, researcher and also as teachers.

People with a green thumb and real concern for plants and the flora are the best candidate for this kind of career.

Educational and Training Requirements

A career in horticulture and gardening maybe complemented by a degree in botany, biology, entomology, genetics, garden design, physiology, and plant design. Plant sciences as well as horticulture courses includes study of plant materials, plant propagation, crop production, tissue culture, post-harvest handling, plant breeding, pollination management, crop nutrition, plant pathology, entomology and others. A masters or a doctoral degree many be required in some horticultural science.

GreenCareersGuide.com is the #1 green careers website on Google. We have the most comprehensive database of articles on green jobs. Whatever your stage of life, we have you covered. Green careers, green training, and green entrepreneurship articles are only a small part of our exhaustive green career site. There are tremendous upsides to having a green career.

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There may be some variation in degrees from one institution to another, but usually the students of horticulture courses will be made to learn all about horticulture for which classes would be conducted and also will be subjected for practical’s where students will be required to get personally involved in the work.

The horticulture programs are designed in such a way so that it prepares the student who are graduates or event students who have just received the degree (high school or college or university). They are well prepared to pursue their careers as a landscaper which involves designing as well the up keeping of the gardening pursuits. This means, the maintenance and improvement of the new and already existing landscapes.

Here in both the situations the person can make money by taking it as a job or doing it as a business on contract basis.

Landscapes can also be re improved or the design can also be changed from time to time to match the present trend and contemporary designs.

There are different programs extended by horticulture courses. Amongst them are an associate’s degree, a common degree and a certificate course in producing an associate degree, a universal certificate, a certificate in production and installation and care.

Most of the horticulture courses place an important and special importance and significance on plant extension and breeding, the plant recognition, nursery, conservation culture, surface layer of ground containing a mat of grass and grass roots management, illness of plants and infections, the cultivation of trees for the production of timber and the designing, building and upkeep of landscapes.

Other classes may contain practice of woodwork, designing of gardens, scientific study of soil, scientific study of plants, and that studies of the principles of transmitting information and the methods by which it is delivered (as print or radio or television etc. and data processing.

Students who graduate may even be called for a chemical applicator’s examination:

If you are expecting diploma which is something more than the level of education that college students are assumed to have attained; some educational institutions extend classes in the branch of architecture, dealing with the arrangement of land and buildings for human use and enjoyment, for which there is a Bachelor’s degree. Graduates will also able to work towards a Graduate level, certificate course of study in designing of Landscape.

There are landscape gardening courses for study that are planned for both a person who pursues an activity in their spare time for pleasure and also for the experts.

Night classes are often Obtainable or accessible by means of a program of instructions designed primarily for adult students who participate part-time. A learner who is enrolled in an educational institution or university for horticulture are commonly individuals who have expressed a concern and he quality of having great facility and competence in field related with The cultivation of plants and all the plant life in particular.

Abhishek is a Career Counselor and he has got some great Career Planning Secrets up his sleeves! Download his FREE 71 Pages Ebook, “Career Planning Made Easy!” from his website http://www.Career-Guru.com/769/index.htm. Only limited Free Copies available.

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As the party host, be creative with your presentation of your Christmas party food and make it easy for your guests to pick up and eat. Create an interactive buffet station by using skewers for your vegetables at the crudites station. Make a vegetable garden presentation using skewered vegetables “planted” in wheat grass.

At the dessert station, build your own fondue station. Again using skewers, offer strawberries, bananas, rice crispy treats, Oreos, marshmallows, to name a few easy finger foods your guests can choose from. If you are trying to watch your weight, select the fruit over the cookies and walk away from the dessert station before you dip into the chocolate!

Christmas party food has a tendency to be very rich and abundant in calories so if you are trying to watch your weight, select the low-calorie alternatives. Party appetizer ideas to watch your weight include selecting the fresh vegetable crudites versus the macaroni cheese bites. Even though the spinach and artichoke and cheese dips are more delicious, dip your veggies into the salsas or various flavored humus dips if offered.

As a host, serving crudites, dips and small bites is an effective use of budget catering. To stretch your dollars further offer easy finger foods such as an anti-pasta station with sliced meats, cheeses and skewered tortellini.

Other party appetizer ideas to help keep your costs low include tray-passing heartier items such as beef or turkey sliders, pigs in blankets, shrimp cocktail and shot glasses filled with soups. You can serve either hot soups such as the classic favorite tomato soup or a cold gazpacho or cucumber soup. By tray-passing these items, you are able to control the portions and timing of the food.

To help maintain a low-cost budget catering menu at the bar, feature a holiday special drink such as a punch with cranberry, Sprite or 7-up, orange juice or pineapple juice and mint leaves. Maybe serve a special alcoholic beverage like a peppermint martini garnished on the rim with crushed peppermint.

I hope you found these party appetizer ideas helpful for your Christmas party food. You can keep costs at a minimum with budget catering by controlling the portions via tray-passing some easy finger foods. Until next time, remember the Budget Bash mantra: make it simple, delicious, stylish, fun & economical to all!

Andrea Wyn is owner of A Wynning Event http://www.awynningevent.com, a Los Angeles wedding and special event management company. She has over 15 years of event planning experience and for the past ten years, she has been the event planner for the Screen Actors Guild Awards(R). She has taken her knowledge and special event experience and written an easy-to-read book called Budget Bash http://www.budgetbashbook.com where you can find more ideas and helpful tips on event planning including menus, decor, budgets, timelines, florals and more.

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The tree is excellent for horticulture as it is tolerant to pollution and salt. The tree is widely used as a garden tree in both trained and untrained forms. The trunk and branches of the tree undergo training from the young age of the plant to make it more elegant and attractive to view. It is one of the popular subjects of bonsai, which requires patience in training the tree for many years. One can find many Korean Black Pine bonsai in the leading nurseries.

The tree is evergreen and does not change or have a leaf fall during winters. The leaf of the tree gives fragrance. The female cones of the tree are 4-7 cm in length and scaled. Male cones are 1-2 cm long and formed in bunches during spring. The color of the flower is yellow which blooms in spring. However, the flower is not too noticeable. The bark of the young plants is brown and it gradually changes to black as the trunk develops and the tree turns older. The tree also bears fruits, which are oval, 1-3 inches long and brown in color. The fruits are not attractive for the wild life, and the foliage creates significant litter.

Korean black pine droops as it grows. Hence, it requires pruning to support the vehicular or pedestrian clearance beneath the canopy. The tree can grow either in full sunlight or even in sunshade. It can tolerate clay, loan, sand, acidic, alkaline, soils. There should be a well-drained system of water to help the growth of the plant. The propagation is through the seed and they germinate readily.

Though any serious pests do not affect the Korean black pine, there are few like bark beetles, caterpillar, adelgids, and pine shoot moth, which do affect. Bark beetles can attack the trees, drilling holes into the trunk and are scattered almost on the whole trunk. The stress in the trees makes them more easily prone attacks. Hence, one has to keep the Korean Black pine always healthy. The pine shot moths will cause the fall of young shoots and the infected shoots may give off resin. Insects affect the shoots generally during the month of May. Use of pesticides should start from April to avoid them to cause damage.

It would be a rewarding experience in growing the Korean black pines. You need to prune, do a good gardening, and watch the needle cast. You can bear the satisfaction of raising it ones it spreads across giving the beautiful view to the entire place.

http://www.dntnursery.com
TN nursery is a state certified tree nursery specializing in native plants and trees,shrubs,fern and perennials as well as pond plants and wetland mitigation species.

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Gurney’s Seed and Nursery, and Henry Field’s Nursery also sold thousands of orders of fruit, nut, and shade trees, etc, like Stark Brother’s Nursery, but they likewise sold to a vast market of vegetable seed buyers a market, that in itself was enormously profitable. If these companies were removed from the American markets “Cui bono?” Who would benefit from this demise, and emerge to replace these giants of mail order success in past history? Would the new mail order replacement companies be owned and controlled by the Dutch office located in the Netherlands?

Google search results show that Foster-Gallagher shipped 17 million packages in the year 2000. The amount of income that was generated from consumers ordering and buying 17,000,000 packages is staggering, even for a liberal mind.

Perhaps, the most specific generator of income from the 21 mail order companies owned by Foster-Gallagher resulted from primarily flower bulb sales. The nationally famous bulb companies, Michigan Bulb Company, Springhill Nursery; Breck’s Bulb Company; New Holland Bulb Company; and the mysterious facilities located in the Netherlands collapsed, when the parent company, Foster-Gallagher, filed for bankruptcy on July 2, 20001. A national chaotic frenzy followed, when it was pronounced that all those people who had placed orders from Foster-Gallagher owned companies, and all those other customers expecting replacement orders the following season would not have their orders filled. The credibility of disappointed customers placing mail order sales was shattered by these reports of “the cold shoulder” being offered to those who had sunk their savings accounts and planting confidence into Foster-Gallagher companies.

Google search results showed that on September 2, 2001, Foster-Gallagher executives reported that the business collapsed as a result from negative media coverage and caused a precipitous drop off in business income leading to the catastrophic National bankruptcy, leaving a $100,000,000 debt liability to be sorted out in the Federal Bankruptcy Court in the State of Delaware and angry mail order customers who absorbed the bad news that their orders and payments received were undeliverable and noncollectable!

Many questions remain unanswered that point to the present year 2006, after the disintegration of many previously, American-owned businesses, 5 years after Foster-Gallagher disappeared. Have those American owned business, now gone, that represented millions and millions of dollars in sales of Agricultural seed, trees, and Dutch grown bulbs, been replaced by Dutch owned companies that control the horticultural sales that funnel American dollars to offshore moguls based in the Netherlands?

Can an imaginary scenario be presented that might reveal how such a traumatic financial shift could insipidly develop and with impunity change the course of American Agriculture? The might and power of American Agriculture has been legendary in years past, and it is appropriate to consider whether or not American Agriculture dominance is teetering into a progressive state of limbo that might eventually endanger National security.

Consider a complex situational possibility that focused hawkish observers might call “Agricultural Terrorism.” Amaryllis sales are an important bulb Dutch export to the United States as well as many other Dutch bulbs like tulips and daffodils. Could the Foster-Gallagher bankruptcy have developed as a result of the following discussion? The Dutch amaryllis growers produce their bulbs in the Netherlands greenhouses, and exported them to the United States during the fall. The several types of market niches for the Dutch bulb exporters are: florists, fund raisers, Dutch owned re-wholesalers, box-store bulb packagers, and American mail order companies. The Dutch commercial florist customers demand quality, true-to-name cultivars, and the florist grower rapidly plants the amaryllis flower bulbs, and he can confirm the integrity of the flower color in about 3-4 weeks, as soon as the amaryllis flowers are forced into bloom. Mail order American customers are very vulnerable to Dutch amaryllis errors, or to a possible deliberate unloading of diseased amaryllis bulbs or slow-selling surplus amaryllis cultivars. The victimized American mail order company may ship his so-called true-to-name amaryllis to thousands of customers; unknowing of the possible latent motives of the Dutch Bulb Company that may have indirectly victimized a trusting, unsuspecting, American customer. Several months may have elapsed before the American mail order company begins to hear his phones, ringing off the hook from unhappy mail order customers, who received the wrong color bulb, or who might have planted a diseased bulb, ultimately ending with death rot. To fulfill the mail order promise of refund or free replacement, the American company not only loses a customer and marketing credibility; but when he confronts the Dutch amaryllis bulb exporters and suppliers, he is told to look at the bottom of his purchase invoice that reveals there is no Dutch guarantee, so the American mail order bulb merchant gets stuck with insoluble negatives that eventually could lead to the closure of his business.

The lack of a credible Dutch guarantee on their products is obvious in the following excerpt at the bottom of a Dutch wholesale purchase order. The Dutch bulbs that were delivered to an American Customer who purchased approximately $20,000 worth of flower bulbs in 2005-2006 season…

“PLEASE NOTE: NO COMPLAINT ENTERTAINED UNLESS MADE WITHIN FIVE DAYS AFTER RECEIPT OF THE GOODS. We give no warranty, expressed or implied, as to description, quality, productiveness or any other matter of any seeds, bulbs or plants we send out nor will we be in any way responsible for the crop. QUALITY FLOWER BULB PRODUCTS”

Whether the American business closures resulted from the loss of his sales revenue, from a deluge of complaints filed angrily against the mail order company to United States governmental agencies. That accumulation of complaints could result in a revocation of a mail order business license, and that means the victims are two-fold; the American mail order amaryllis bulb company and the customer who did buy his product.

How then, could the Dutch amaryllis bulb company benefit,”Cui bono”, or conspire to benefit from the deliberate malicious act of mischief? The answer to this question becomes clear when the revelation is made that the Dutch exporter also owns a business interest in an American mail order competitor selling Amaryllis to the American bulb customer, who finally ended up as one more more mysterious, unexplained business failure. The dissatisfied mail order complainers might be redirected next year to buy their amaryllis from the Dutch export retail operation that in combination with all the other Dutch owned wholesale and retail operations.

Not only can a mail order company be deliberately stocked with an inventory of untrue-to-name bulb, but the American bulb merchant may, by misfortune receive amaryllis bulbs bulbs infected with the Red Blotch disease, Stagonospora curtisii, that seriously erupts with bright red spots on the amaryllis leaves, the flower stems, the flower petals, and the dormant amaryllis bulbs, both outside or inside the bulb. The red spots are small at first, and increase in size to form large, dark red blotches on tainted, dying leaves, infected bent flower stems, that eventually began to collapse inwards to progressively fatally rot the amaryllis bulb into a pile of malignant brown jelly. It has been possible recently to prove by the investigations of agricultural authorities that the amaryllis rot originated from the exporting Dutch grower; if the red spots originated from the lower cells of the dormant bulb center. The infected red blotch in a number of amaryllis bulbs would point to evidence that the bulbs were intentionally marketed by the Dutch exporters as diseased bulbs with malice apparent.

Another very serious disease is the amaryllis mosaic virus that can spread fast to infect amaryllis flower bulbs with streaks or on the leaves of yellow, reducing normal growth and flowering. Clemson University says “nothing one can do to eliminate mosaic (virus) from an infected plant” and the amaryllis bulbs should be destroyed.

The question remains unanswered: Have the Dutch bulb exporters gained financial control of American agriculture? The Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company reported sales of 306 billion dollars in 2005 and was the second most profitable corporation in the world with its largest revenue coming from the United States.

Patrick N. Malcolm, owner of TyTy Nursery, http://www.tytyga.com, has an M.S. degree in Botany and has hybridized crinum lily, canna lily, and other rare flower bulbs for over 34 years.

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The Importance of Carbon Air Filters

Although “hydroponics” literally means “water gardening,” air purification is an important component. One of the challenges maintaining indoor hydroponic systems and indoor gardens is eliminating the many airborne contaminants that can cause your plants to sicken and even die. It’s a good idea to have a blower of some kind that brings in plenty of fresh air to the space, but carbon filters are necessary in order to remove various potential toxins from the environment as well.

There’s another important reason why when engaging in activities related to indoor horticulture, carbon filters are important, and that is to keep odors at a minimum.

Types of Carbon Air Filters

There are several types of carbon filters available:

• Powdered activated carbon (PAC)

• Granulated activated carbon (GAC)

• Extruded activated carbon (EAC)

• Impregnated carbon

• Polymers coated carbon

• Activated carbon fiber

Each of these has a specific use, not all of which are appropriate for hydroponic systems and indoor gardens. Indoor air filters are of the GAC type. Used on U.S. Navy submarines, granulated activated carbon filters contain a form of that element of which the granules are relatively larger than that found in powdered activated carbon air filters.

How Do Carbon Filters Work?

It is not possible to see the process by which activated carbon purifies air and water, nor even under any but the most powerful electron microscope. Carbon is activated by treating charcoal with oxygen, which opens up millions of “micropores” in the surface of the granules on the atomic level. This provides a relatively huge surface in relation to size – up to 2,000 square meters per gram! Because of this surface area, organic chemicals that have a tendency to bond to carbon are virtually unable to pass through and are trapped.

By the way, carbon air filters are not effective when it comes to inorganic chemicals (the exception being chlorine, which is why activated carbon is good for water treatment). However, chances are that your plants won’t be producing sodium or any nitrates, and it’s unlikely to enter your indoor garden from the outside.

Replace Your Carbon Air Filters as Recommended

There is a limit to how much in the way of organic contaminants activated carbon filters can absorb; therefore, they need to be changed regularly. You can extend the life of your carbon filters by using them in combination with HEPA filters.

Susan Slobac has a great deal of experience with indoor gardening. Hydroponic gardening is the way of the future. Known to some as “soil less gardening”, hydroponics are proven to grow plants 20-30% faster than their soil grown counterparts.

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