What I believe you are looking for is How to become a horticulturist,not a botanist. The two are not the same. Botany today encompasses the sciences of plant anatomy, physiology,taxonomy, genetics, and several others. Botany is not a simple,clear-cut science. It is complex and becomes more so each year. It is also a most satisfying study and provides many days of pure pleasure. I would suggest consulting a botany instructor at a local college-level school who might well offer valuable advice.

With a little investment money, and a day job for a few years, you could buy some land, find a niche market item, or several, and sell at farmerÂs markets and on line, starting at eBay. With fuel costs becoming prohibitive, and a green movement to buy local, this may become an important market in the years to come. Who would have thought the heirloom tomato market would have become so big? Or the farmers markets? Heirloom apples seem to be making the same inroads as heirloom tomatoes, as the health benefits of fresh fruits become more important, and consumers become fed up with the awful tasting fruit at the supermarkets. My dream would be to buy land in San Diego, grow gourmet mangos such as Alfonso, Edward, Gouveia. Perhaps even lychees, other delicious tropical fruit crippled by import restrictions, as the Florida sources become more devastated by hurricanes. There is a large SoCal immigrant community becoming more affluent, who might support such an enterprise. But I could be wrong. Another angle is that there are some nurseries in the North East that are frozen in for the winter, and would benefit from a California division that grows and ships year round, and could bypass the out of state agricultural restrictions to ship to a busy California market. I saw one advertising for such help a few months ago. Good luck with your new enterprise. A brave new world awaits you.

I sold at the Farmers Market in Norman for about 10 years and really enjoyed it. Got to know a lot of fantastic people. I still miss it. The best growers at the market were always the hardest workers that took pride in themselves, their effort to make the market a success, and the product they offered. There were a few retired people that did the market just for something to occupy their time and loved being a part of the market. They didn't produce a lot of veggies or fruit, but were just as valuable to the market as the big truck farmers were. They weren't always as busy and were great greeters and socializers that I loved being around them. The one negative is how many times you have to handle your product and the gas you burn if you have to go back and forth very much over any kind of distance. Being able to gauge correctly how much to bring and selling out right at closing time is the optimal way to go. less waste and work at the market. randy

I became a horticulturist because it was in my blood. Both my parents and both sets of grandparents were avid gardeners. It was what they did in their spare time and as a child I grew up in gardens and the woods of North Florida. I got my AA degree and still had no clue what I wanted to major in so I moved to Colorado and became a waiter at a country club where I met one of the gardeners who tended the landscape not the fairways when I was dumping ice from the shrimp buffet into the shrubs off the deck in the early spring and he objected and explained why. It just dawned on me that was what I was supposed to get my BS degree in. I had to party and ski a bit first and then move back home again but I did get my degree from the University of Florida in Gainesville. I knew it was not going to be a big money career but I also knew I could not work in any kind of office type job. I needed to be outside and to be honest away from people. What it has allowed me is to be successfully self-employed for the last 18 years. I have never advertised and all my work comes from referral. My business is essentially me and one helper. I have never made any effort to hire a big crew and get tons of accounts. My perfectionist nature would cause me to implode trying to keep all that together. The money part, yes I do have regrets, not having saved or bought my own home and living month to month. That has much more to do though with me being a lousy business man than the field I chose. I'd suggest, Dr. Horticulture, that if you are concerned about the money take a few business classes. I wish I had. I have seen plenty of people make plenty of money in the vast vast field that is Horticulture. More then anything it is a function of how much of a priority it is to you and the skills you have to make that happen. Even with my lower middle class life I do not regret the choice I made. As I have gotten older and my body has begun to complain, money has taken on a new priority. For me getting sober was necesary before I could begin to realize the true value of the knowledge I have and to start charging what I was worth and get more selective about who I would work for and what I was willing to do. In just four years that has made a big difference in my income. The simplest answer to your question though is you can make plenty money in the field of horticulture if you are a good business man as well. ilima