The Department of Horticulture came into existence with the establishment of the Biswanath College of Agriculture in 1988 with the objective of teaching horticulture in B.Sc. (Agri.) degree programme. The mandate of the department is to expertise the students in the field of horticulture both theoretically and practically. The department has been conducting the UG courses as per 5th Dean’s Committee syllabus since 2016. Experiential learning programme (ELP) on ‘Commercial Horticulture’ was started in the department from 2013-14. All the 4th year, B. Sc. (Hons) Agriculture students of this college and Sarat Chandra Sinha College of Agriculture (SCSCA), Dhubri have been joining ELP conducted by the department since 2017-18. PG programme in the department of Horticulture has been started from the academic session 2011-12 with enrollment of 5 students. Total seats in M. Sc. (Agri) programme in the department has been increased to 6 from 2016-17. From the first batch in 2011-12 to the 10th batch of 2020-21 academic sessions, a total of 52 students have enrolled in M. Sc. (Agri) programme and 40 students have successfully completed M. Sc. (Agri) in Horticulture till 2019-20. At present 12 students are on roll. The department has established one well equipped laboratory to conduct practical classes and to carry out the laboratory works related to researches by the PG students.
An area of 30.0 ha land was earmarked for establishing Instructional cum Research (ICR) farm outside the college campus but 7.2 ha of land was handed over to Central Citrus Research Institute, Nagpur to establish Regional Research Centre for Citrus in 2016-17 as per MoU with Assam Agricultural University. At present, a total of 22.8 ha of land are under the department of Horticulture where field practical classes are conducted, vegetables, flowers and fruit crops are cultivated and field experiments of PG students are conducted. The infrastructures namely, classrooms, polyhouses, net houses, working shed, implement shed, overhead water tank and drip irrigation system in the ICR farm have been developed with the fund available from ICAR, RKVY, Technology Mission and NAHEP. The department is also resourceful with one tractor and one power tiller with their accessories.
Present status of manpower of the department
| Sl. No. | Name | Designation | Specialization | Date of joining in the | |
| AAU service | Department | ||||
| Faculty | |||||
| 1 | Dr. Bhakta Prasad Gautam | Professor & i/c of Department | Vegetable Science | 02/05/1988 | 27/09/2000 |
| 2 | Dr. Dharindra Nath Hazarika | Professor | Fruit Science | 21/10/1988 | 24/07/2009 |
| 3 | Dr. Supriya Langthasa | Professor | Post harvest management | 07/01/1991 | 24/07/2009 |
| 4 | Mrs. Nayanmoni Buragohain | Assistant Professor | Vegetable Science | 08/08/2011 | 13/08/2018 |
| 5 | Dr. Kishalayee Gogoi | Assistant Professor | Floriculture | 05/04/2018 as Ad-hoc | 31/07/2019 |
| 01/08/2019 | 01/08/2019 | ||||
| Supporting staff | |||||
| 6 | Mr. Rituparna Rajashree Das | Field Assistant | --- | 26/10/2015 | 26/10/2015 |
| UG Courses | ||||
| # | Course No. | Course Title | Course Credit | Syllabus |
| 1 | ELP-420 (VII) * | Commercial Horticulture | 5(0 + 5) | |
| 2 | Hort(Elect)-313 | Protected Cultivation | 3(2 + 1) | |
| 3 | Hort-112 * | Fundamentals of Horticulture | 2(1 + 1) | |
| 4 | Hort-112(i) * | Introduction to Forestry | 2(1 + 1) | |
| 5 | Hort-122 * | Production technology for fruit crops | 2(1 + 1) | |
| 6 | Hort-213 * | Production technology of flowers, medicinal and aromatic plants and landscaping | 3(2 + 1) | |
| 7 | Hort-222 * | Post-harvest Management and Value Addition of Fruits and Vegetables, | 2(1 + 1) | |
| 8 | Hort-323 * | Production Technology of Vegetables and Spices | 3(2 + 1) | |
| 9 | THT-212 * | Production Technology of Plantation Crops, | 2(2 + 0) | * courses are compulsory |
| Masters Courses | ||||
| # | Course No. | Course Title | Course Credit | Syllabus |
| 1 | FLA-501 * | BREEDING OF FLOWER CROPS AND ORNAMENTAL PLANTS | 3(2 + 1) | |
| 2 | FLA-502 * | PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY OF CUT FLOWERS | 3(2 + 1) | |
| 3 | FLA-503 * | PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY FOR LOOSE FLOWERS | 3(2 + 1) | |
| 4 | FLA-504 * | LANDSCAPING AND ORNAMENTAL GARDENING | 3(2 + 1) | |
| 5 | FLA-505 | PROTECTED FLORICULTURE | 3(2 + 1) | |
| 6 | FLA-506 | VALUE ADDITION IN FLOWERS | 3(2 + 1) | |
| 7 | FLA-507 * | TURFING AND TURF MANAGEMENT | 3(2 + 1) | |
| 8 | FLA-508 | CAD FOR OUTDOOR AND INDOORSCAPING | 3(2 + 1) | |