**Part 5**

**Urban Horticulture** 

102 Horticulture

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**6** 

**Local Botanical Knowledge** 

*Laboratorio de Etnobotánica y Botánica Aplicada,* 

*Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La Plata,* 

*República Argentina* 

**and Agrobiodiversity: Homegardens** 

María Lelia Pochettino, Julio A. Hurrell and Verónica S. Lema

*Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET),* 

**at Rural and Periurban Contexts in Argentina** 

*Homegardens* are defined as those cultivated spaces, generally of reduced extensión, located in the surroundings of the house. Garden produce is mainly consumed at home, or given away to related families, but exceptionally devoted to commercialization as a supplementary resource of domestic economy (Buet *et al*., 2010; Pochettino, 2010, Wagner, 2002). Homegardens study constitutes a subject of increasing interest in Ethnobotany, as this approach contributes to both agrobiodiversity conservation (in particular to the infraspecific level) and to the preservation of cultural diversity: management strategies as well as species and varieties selection are not market-oriented, but they are regulated by preferences and culinary uses, linked with family traditions. So, these homegardens could be considered as real adaptative responses of local human groups arising from their own experience in the environment. This subject has been approached by diverse authors all over the world (Albuquerque *et al*., 2005; Blanckaert *et al*., 2004; Das & Das, 2005; Lamont *et al*., 1999; Nazarea, 1998; Vogl *et al*., 2002; Vogl *et al.,* 2004; Vogl-Lukasser *et al*., 2002; Wagner, 2002; Watson & Eyzaguirre, 2002) even in Argentina, many of them developed by the research team of Laboratorio de Etnobotánica y Botánica Aplicada (LEBA), Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina (Buet *et al*., 2010; Del Río *et al*., 2007; Lema, 2006; Maidana *et al*., 2005; Martínez *et al*., 2003; Pérez *et al*., 2008; Pochettino

The context for the study of horticultural practices performed in homegardens is centered on the botanical knowledge that guides those practices. *Botanical knowledge* (BK) is a set of knowledge and beliefs about plant environment, that conditions the strategies of plant selection and handling, specifying wich plant should be considered as a resource, and how it should be managed. BK shows different features according with cultural and ecological conditions. In many areas, horticultural practices derive from a local BK characteristic of culturally contexts generally viewed as homogeneous, mainly because a long experience of

**1. Introduction**

**1.1 Ethnobotany and horticulture**

*et al*., 2006; Pochettino, 2010; Turco *et al*., 2006).
