HORTICULTURE

Index
1. About horticulture.

2. WFGA involvement in Horticulture Industry.

3. Job position in horticulture.

1) Pruning

2) Picking

3) Packing

4) Planting

5) Weeding

4. Our Commitment to the Environment

1. About Horticulture.
Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of
preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. The word horticulture comes
from the Latin hortus meaning garden, and cultus, meaning to cultivate. Horticulturists work
and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop
production, plant breeding and genetic engineering, plant biochemistry, and plant
physiology. The work basically involves fruits, berries, nuts, vegetables, flowers, trees,
shrubs, and turf. Horticulturists work to improve crop yield, quality, nutritional value, and
resistance to insects, diseases, and environmental stresses. Horticulture usually refers to
gardening on a smaller scale, while agriculture refers to the large-scale cultivation of crops.

Horticulture - a big and growing business in New Zealand

Horticulture is an important part of New Zealand's economy. Sales of wine, fruit, flowers and
vegetables earned $5.5 billion in the year ended June 2008. There are plans to increase fruit
and vegetable sales to $10 billion by 2010, by increasing productivity, and targeting buyers
who are prepared to pay higher prices for quality food.

Most people working in horticulture are involved in growing:

• Fruit, especially grapes, kiwifruit and apples
• Nursery plants
• Vegetables.

Horticulture roles involve:

• Growing, harvesting, packing, grading and selling fruit, vegetables, flowers and
seedlings
• Designing, building and maintaining gardens, parks or sports grounds
• Doing research to develop new crop varieties
• Providing information and advice about maintaining and improving the quality of
crops.

Fewer workers in some areas of horticulture, but opportunities still good

Horticultural production has been growing, but the number of fruit growers, nursery
workers and market gardeners has fallen. This is because many small businesses are being
taken over by large firms. These use equipment such as mechanical harvesters and
computerised glasshouses, meaning they need fewer permanent staff.

However, the horticulture industry still employs a large number of people. There were
23,226 people working in horticulture in 2006.

Winemaking and grape growing are both growing horticultural areas. More land has been
planted in grapes, and more wine is being made.
Progression opportunities good
Demand for workers in horticulture is only expected to increase slightly, because large-scale
production is becoming more common.

However, the trend to larger businesses means there are more opportunities for people to
progress into areas like management of orchards, quality control for a whole firm, or
exporting. Many employers are willing to take on keen workers who show aptitude in these
areas, and to pay for their training. The number of horticultural trainees in 2008 was 2,624
compared to 763 in 2001.

Horticulture - Jobs in this industry

• Growing or working with plants
• Doing physical work, and working with hands
• Using different tools, machinery and equipment
• Designing, building and maintaining outdoor areas
• Planning and managing planting, growing and harvesting of crops
• Doing research into new crop and plant varieties
• Managing a team or business.
2. WFGA involvement in horticulture.
Windfall Global provides a complete solution for the horticulture industry with time bound
development methodology and process.
With a balanced view of strategy, people, process and technology, we work with our clients
to understand their unique business needs, and to develop and implement practical business
strategies and solutions.
Clients benefit from our tradition of transferring knowledge through out each engagement,
and value our responsiveness, flexibility and authentic desire to help them meet, and often
exceed, their goals.
Windfall Global is a recognised leader with deep industry, business, and technology
experience in HR Consulting. We are specialised in all these areas and allied services
including basic research. We offer flexible staffing solutions to premier organisations that
require practical expertise on demand. Windfall has a sound reputation for a systematic and
hands-on approach to Human Resources Consulting. Since our inception, we have steadily
grown to one of the successful consulting organisation in Auckland. Our full – service
approach, extensive knowledge of the horticulture market place and experienced staff
allows us to respond to your special needs and requirements promptly.

Windfall Global Alliance has a systematic approach to meet and exceed clients’
expectations.

Strategy Development
Understand the client needs.
Identification of companies, market segments and right candidates.

Implementation
Potential candidates are screened with respect to the critical competencies through tests
and interviews. Qualified candidates are submitted to the client with their details.

More Date Will be provided soon, so please leave

some space.
3. Job position in horticulture.
1) Pruning
In horticulture, the removal or reduction of parts of a plant, tree, or vine that are not
requisite to growth or production, are no longer visually pleasing, or are injurious to
the health or development of the plant. Pruning is common practice in orchard and
vineyard management for the improvement of flowering and fruiting. Reasons to
prune plants include deadwood removal, shaping (by controlling or directing
growth), improving or maintaining health, reducing risk from falling branches,
preparing nursery specimens for transplanting, and both harvesting and increasing
the yield or quality of flowers and fruits. The practice entails targeted removal of
diseased, damaged, dead, non-productive, structurally unsound, or otherwise
unwanted tissue from crop and landscape plants. Specialized pruning practices may
be applied to certain plants, such as roses, fruit trees, and grapevines. Different
pruning techniques may be deployed on herbaceous plants than those used on
perennial woody plants. Hedges, by design, are usually (but not exclusively)
maintained by hedge trimming, rather than by pruning.

2) Picking
Picking or harvesting is a seasonal activity that occurs during harvest time in areas
with fruit growing wild or being farmed in orchards. Most of the picking jobs are
done by migrant workers. Migrant workers are frequently used as they can be paid
relatively low wages and usually do the job quite well. There has been much
controversy about replacing workers with automation. It puts many out of work.

3) Packing
Active packaging systems can offer significant advantages in preventing quality loss
in horticultural products through control of microbial and/or physiological activity.
By delivering and sustaining volatile active agents at effective levels in a package
atmosphere, significant shelf life extension can thus be achieved.
Packaging requirements in this sector vary enormously depending on the type of
produce needing to be packed and where it needs to be packed.
Packaging prevents damage to the crop and enhances the sales through advertising.
It also provides information about the crop to the customers. Different packing
methods are adopted based on the type of the produce.

4) Planting
One possible horticulture job is a Planting. This person is responsible for having a
vision for a hillside, front lawn, or business parkway, and being able to implement
planting smoothly. A designer has knowledge of appropriate hedges, trees,
perennials, and ground cover that will do well in that particular climate. One would
also be in charge of landscape elements, such as water features, pathways, retaining
walls, and arbores. Experience with irrigation, drainage, and soil type would be an
asset to a Planter.
 5) Weeding
Weed control is the botanical component of pest control, using physical and
chemical methods to stop weeds from reaching a mature stage of growth when they
could be harmful to domesticated plants and livestock. In order to reduce weed
growth, many "weed control" strategies have been developed in order to contain
the growth and spread of weeds.
The most basic is ploughing which cuts the roots of annual weeds. Today, chemical
weed killers known as herbicides are widely used.

In domestic gardens, methods of weed control include covering an area of ground

with several layers of wet newspaper or one black plastic sheet for several weeks. In
the case of using wet newspaper, the multiple layers prevent light from reaching all
plants beneath, which kills them. Saturating the newspaper with water daily speeds
the decomposition of the dead plants. Any weed seeds that start to sprout because
of the water will also be deprived of sunlight, be killed, and decompose. After several
weeks, all germinating weed seeds present in the ground should be dead. Then the
newspaper can be removed and the ground can be planted. The decomposed plants
will help fertilise the plants or seeds planted later.

4. Our Commitment to the Environment

Companies face increasing demands to address environmental problems. We consider it

crucial to address these issues through our recruitment & power business, as part of which
we recruit employees with similar environmental conscience for horticulture industry and
fund clean technology ventures around the world focusing on clean energy and clean
technologies. As part of our initiative we have invested in wind energy projects around the
world.
At WindFall Global Alliance every day is Environment Day. While most organisations are still
formulating their strategy on climate change, the company has already rolled up its sleeves
and begun to tackle the issue.