Fruit & Vegetable farming and horticulture

Overview of the main vegetable and horticultural crops

Vegetable crops include a wide variety of vegetables grown in open fields or greenhouses: lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, carrots, radishes, zucchini, leeks, onions, etc. These vegetable crops, which often have a short cycle, require market gardeners to be highly responsive and pay constant attention to soil quality, irrigation, and climatic conditions.

Horticultural production covers a broader spectrum, with a wide variety of fruit, flowers, and aromatic plants grown depending on the region. These include cut flowers such as roses, gerberas, and chrysanthemums; potted plants (petunias, geraniums, kalanchoes); ornamental trees and shrubs (laurels, thujas, fruit bushes); and aromatic and medicinal plants such as basil, mint, lavender, and thyme. As for fruit, strawberry, raspberry, lemon, and apple trees are grown in both nurseries and orchards.

In all cases, whether vegetable, fruit, flower, or nursery crops, all these crops share high standards in terms of quality, consistency, and resilience to climatic hazards.

Yield, quality, climate: concrete agronomic challenges

Producers in both market gardening and horticulture face increasingly complex technical and environmental challenges. Climate instability, water scarcity, and growing health pressures require constant adaptation of farming practices.

Achieving a good yield is no longer enough:

• it is also necessary to ensure consistent visual and taste quality,
• preserve soil balance,
• limit the use of plant protection products,
• and extend the production period (starting in winter, for example).

However, horticultural and vegetable crops are particularly sensitive to abiotic stress: drought, excessive heat, cold, frost, deficiencies, salinity, etc. All these factors can slow plant growth and impact profitability.

Faced with these challenges, the plant industry must therefore combine agronomic rigor and technical innovation to ensure the economic viability of production. The ability to anticipate plants’ needs, strengthen their natural resilience, and adjust practices in real time has become an essential lever for securing production and operations.

Biostimulants: technical allies for market gardening and horticulture

Given current constraints, biostimulants offer a technical solution that complements traditional agricultural practices. They support plants throughout the different stages of their development, strengthening their physiology and their ability to cope with water, heat, or nutritional stress.

In horticultural and vegetable production, biostimulants can help to:

• stimulate rooting,
• improve plant nutrition,
• increase tolerance to abiotic stress,
• and support the recovery of young plants.

Applied as a basic treatment or in response to a specific situation, they can be integrated into specific technical itineraries, not as a substitute for fertilization or plant protection, but acting in synergy with them.

Regardless of their composition—based on algae extracts, amino acids, microorganisms, fulvic and humic acids, or plant extracts—their effectiveness relies on detailed knowledge of crops and controlled application conditions. For vegetable and horticultural producers, biostimulants are thus becoming a valuable agronomic lever for improving resilience, securing yields, and meeting the growing demands of the industry.

Innovate without compromising performance thanks to biostimulants

For horticultural and vegetable crops, balancing agronomic requirements, climate adaptation, and sustainability is becoming essential. By providing targeted, natural solutions to plants’ needs, biostimulants are emerging as the way forward for better, more peaceful, and more sustainable farming, whether you are a vegetable grower or a horticulturist.