THE FLORICULTURAL CENTRE OF GHENT AS MODELLED BY ITS SUBSTRATA

The horticultural centre of Ghent groups about 2,200 floriculturists out of the 4,040 professional ornamental plant growers active in this country. In order to assess its importance, the total area covered by each kind of plant growing together with its total increase over the last ten years is given here below.

TABLE 1

Total area per king of plant growing and its increase (1972)

Kind of plant growing	Surface covered	Increase over the
		last 10 years
outdoor floriculture	876 ha	9 %
outdoor nursery stock	1883 ha	12 %
production of seeds and plant material	63 ha	117 %
floriculture in greenhouses	410 ha	78 %
	total 3232 ha	average 29 %

Besides floriculture, vegetable and fruit cropping are also very important in Belgium.

Vegetable cropping in the country covers a surface of 24,273 ha outdoors and 87,332 ha in greenhouses. This means an increase over the last 10 years of 26 % and 74 % respectively.

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