It's back to the future.

Two departments of Cornell University's New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences -- Floriculture and Ornamental Horticulture, and Fruit and Vegetable Science -- will merge July 1 to become the Department of Horticulture. The name was retired in 1913 when horticulture was split into three departments.

H. Christian Wien, Cornell professor of horticulture, will serve as the new department's chair. He had been the chair of the fruit and vegetable science department since 1996. "The new department will provide synergism and eliminate redundancies in current research, teaching and extension programs," he says.

For nearly two decades after Cornell opened its doors in 1869, horticulture was a sub-department under botany. It became a full department in 1888 under legendary professor Liberty Hyde Bailey. In 1903, John Craig took over as chair when Bailey was named dean of the Agriculture College and director of the Cornell New York State Agricultural Experiment Station. After Craig's death in 1912, the department was split into three departments: floriculture, vegetable gardening and pomology.

In the nearly nine decades since then, the agriculture curriculum has changed "in response to the marketplace," says Wien. "We have gone through periods in which the emphasis for students was specific study and a narrower focus. Now, there is a need for broadly educated students. Now if you want a broad education, you can do that more readily in the Department of Horticulture. It will allow undergraduate students to study across disciplines. And, if as a student you want to focus your studies, you'll have the opportunity to do that, too."

Wien says that the undergraduate curriculum in the new department will not change much in the short term but that students will begin to see curriculum changes in the intermediate term, when new undergraduate courses are in place. The Cornell Graduate School already has approved curriculum changes for graduate students, and these will become official once they have been approved by the Cornell Faculty Senate and by the trustees of the State University of New York.

"We will eventually see top-to-bottom changes," says Wien. "Now few undergrads are interested in the nitty-gritty of fruit systems and are demanding more of a broader education." For example, Wien taught the physiology of vegetable crops every year and attendance was low. Now he will teach it every other year and expand the subject matter to include ornamental plants.

Beyond the classroom, effects from this change will be felt in the research laboratories, crop fields and greenhouses.

"This merger gives the faculty from both departments an opportunity not only to work efficiently but to work together in labs. Without this merger, the cooperation among faculty wouldn't have occurred to nearly such an extent," says Wien. "Besides, with the kind of expensive equipment researchers need today to do their work, they can use the same equipment on different horticultural plants. Even before the official merger, there was evidence of that happening already."