Horticulture Science Jobs
If you get a degree in horticulture sciences, you can go a number of places with your career. Horticultural sciences are typically not hired by farms directly, but are instead hired by food production companies in order to create new, better company-wide policies for their farms. Like geneticists and breeders, the main job of a horticulture scientist is to increase the quantity and quality of the products while decreasing farming and processing costs. What are some of the tasks you could do as a horticultural scientist?
Your research could seek to answer a number of questions:
- How can I make food safer?
- What are the best landscaping techniques for both large and small plots of land?
- How do plants relate to one another?
- What can be done to control bee populations for optimal pollination?
- How do changing weather patterns affect farm products?
- How can soil be optimized for crop growth?
- What pests and diseases are most affecting farmers and what can be done to deal with them?
- Where can farms save money without sacrificing quality?
- How do processing techniques affect the quality or nutritional value of food?
- How will new laws affecting the farming community?
- Can advances in agricultural genetics be useful for human genetic research?
- What are the best ways to make agricultural companies more environmentally friendly?
- Are there other possible uses for products that are traditionally wasted?
- How can farmers best deal with supply and demand?
- What new technologies can make the job of a farmer easier?
- How does packaging affect farm products?
This is not by far an exclusive list of questions plaguing today’s horticultural scientists. If you get a degree in this area, you may also want to concentrate in a specific area of agriculture, like business, computer technology, biology, or meteorology. You can also get an advanced degree in one of these areas, which will qualify you for better jobs at higher pay rates, no matter what area of horticultural science most interests you.