TEACHING PLANT IDENTIFICATION IN THE HORTICULTURAL INDUSTRY

An awareness of the importance of plant identification in the training of horticultural staff has become more evident in recent years.
This aspect of a trainee’s education is now a compulsory part of the assessments and examinations conducted by every major examining body in the United Kingdom.
To meet the demand for a standard system of teaching, the Agricultural Training Board has developed a course that fulfils the requirements of the Horticultural Training Scheme and commercial in-house training.

Until the early 1980s no proper training package existed.
The only training being based upon a simple system of matching plants with their names.
During the past three years a now nationally accepted training course has been developed which interprets the plant kingdom, plant names and simple identification techniques in a practical fashion.
The success of the course stems from an unorthodox approach which centres upon essential knowledge and practical demonstration, leaving hitherto assumed vital botanical knowledge for later assimilation.

I International Symposium on Taxonomy of Cultivated Plants

P.R. Swindells

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1986.182.22