TropHort is an abbreviation for Tropical Horticulture. Tropical Horticulture is a branch of horticulture that studies and cultivates garden plants in the tropics, i.e., the equatorial regions of the world.
Tropical Horticulture covers plants such as perennial woody plants (arboriculture), ornamentals (floriculture), vegetables (olericulture), and fruits (pomology) including grapes (viticulture). The origin of many of these crops is not in the tropics but in temperate zones. Their adoption to tropical climatic conditions is an objective of breeding. Many important crops, however, are indigenous to the tropics. The latter embrace perennial crops such as oil palm, vegetables including okra, field crops such as rice and sugarcane, and particularly fruits including pineapple, banana, papaya, and mango.
Since the tropics represent 36% of the Earth's surface and 20% of its land surface, the potential of tropical horticulture is tremendous[1]. In contrast to that of temperate regions, environmental conditions are less defined by seasonal temperature fluctuations but by seasonality of precipitation. Although such variations are less close to the equator (±5° latitude), the climate in the greater part of the tropics is characterized by distinct wet and dry seasons.
Temperature conditions within the tropics depend less on seasonal variations but on altitude[2]. Many of the tropical highlands are, consequently, more favourable for production of temperate plant species than their lowland counterparts.
Plants indigenous to the tropics are usually cold sensitive, adapted to high solar radiation, sensitive to small variations in photoperiod (short day plants), and adopted to either extended drought, high precipitation and/or distinct wet and dry seasons. High night temperatures are a major hindrance to adopting temperate crops (e.g., tomato) to the tropics. Furthermore, such conditions promote high respiration rates of plants, resulting in comparably lower net photosynthesis rates[3].
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