The world around us is so precious and beautiful. There are numerous varieties of plants around us which are charming, fascination, enchanting and give us the gift of fragrance, fruits, flowers and other necessities of life. According to historians, human beings started domestication of plants around 10,000 B.C and this is the start of agriculture.
No one among us can deny the importance of plants in our daily life; our survival on this planet Earth is not possible without plants. Plant provide us food, shelter, clothing, wood for construction, medicines and important natural extracts which are part of products of our daily use like herbal soaps and herbal drinks.
So, human dependence on plants compelled our ancestors to discover, collect, domesticate and investigate various plant species, thus leading to the development of plant science aka phytology (Phyto = plant, logos = to study). This humble beginning led to the modern day agriculture.
Phytology includes both agricultural and botanical aspects of the plants. As a results of efforts of past few centuries, the knowledge has expanded so vast that this can be divided into different divisions.
The important disciplines of phytology are as follows;
i) Taxonomy (aka Systematic Botany) - deals nomenclature and classification of plants.
ii) Morphology - deals study of internal and external plant structures. Anantomy is the study of internal structures.
iii) Physiology - deals the study of internal processes involved in the growth and development of the plants.
iv) Pathology - deals the study of plant diseases which may be fungal, bacterial, nematodal, or viral hence the branches of plant pathology are mycology, bacteriology, nematology and virology.
v) Mycology - deals with the kingdom fungi, their structure, functions, classification and importance and so on.
vi) Genetics - deals the study of genes and inheritance in plants.
vii) Breeding - deals with the ways and means of fertilization of the male and female gametes. This is done to improve the desired traits in the plants and helps in development of new and better varieties.
viii) Ecology - deals the relationship of a plant to its biophysical environment.
ix) Cytology - deals structure and function of cell and its organelles.
x) Molecular Biology - deals the study of structures, functions and exploitation of the molecules of living system such as DNA, RNA and various proteins.
xi) Phytochemistry (aka Plant Biochemistry) - deals various chemical reactions and their mechanisms within the plant cell.
xii) Agriculture - it is the cultivation of soil, including all farm operation and management for the successful crop and animal production.
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