gardening Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants as part of horticulture. In gardens, ornamental plants are often grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance; useful plants, such as root vegetables, leaf vegetables, f ...

and agronomic terminology, a volunteer is a plant that grows on its own, rather than being deliberately planted by a

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer m ...

gardener A gardener is someone who practices gardening, either professionally or as a hobby. Description A gardener is any person involved in gardening, arguably the oldest occupation, from the hobbyist in a residential garden, the home-owner suppleme ...

. Volunteers often grow from

seed A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiospe ...

s that float in on the

wind Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few ho ...

, are dropped by

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s, or are inadvertently mixed into

compost Compost is a mixture of ingredients used as plant fertilizer and to improve soil's physical, chemical and biological properties. It is commonly prepared by decomposing plant, food waste, recycling organic materials and manure. The resulting ...

. Some volunteers may be encouraged by gardeners once they appear, being watered, fertilized, or otherwise cared for, unlike weeds, which are unwanted volunteers. The action of such plants – to sprout or grow in this fashion – may also be described as volunteering. Volunteers that grow from the seeds of specific

cultivar A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture, ...

s are not reliably identical or similar to their parent and often differ significantly from it. Such open pollinated plants, if they show desirable characteristics, may be selected to become new cultivars.

Law

This definition also has the meaning in the law context, defining the drug-producing plant like

cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternative ...

as a "volunteer" if it grows of its own accord from seeds or roots and is not intentionally planted. It may be special rules about how such plants are managed if any occurred after growing the cultivar legitimately under the license.

Agriculture

Maize in soybean field, Monroe Township cropped

In agricultural rotations, self-set plants from the previous year's crop may become established as weeds in the current crop. For example, volunteer

winter wheat Winter wheat (usually ''Triticum aestivum'') are strains of wheat that are planted in the autumn to germinate and develop into young plants that remain in the vegetative phase during the winter and resume growth in early spring. Classification ...

will germinate to quite high levels in a following oilseed rape crop, usually requiring chemical control measures. In agricultural research, the high purity of a harvested crop is usually desirable. To achieve this, typically a group of temporary workers will walk the crop rows looking for volunteer plants, or "rogue" plants in an exercise often referred to as " roguing".

References

Botany Crops Horticulture Drug control law {{horticulture-stub

Law

Agriculture

See also

References