Module M.SIA.P07: Soil and plant science
Learning outcome, core skills:
Compulsary bridging module for students entering the SIA program (i) either lacking basic knowledge in some agronomy disciplines and/or (ii) furnishing a refreshment of agricultural principles linked to organic cropping systems. With the help of lectures and reading materials students will be enabled to get updated on state-of-the art knowledge with a special focus on questions pertinent to organic agriculture. Students, having taken this module, will be able to follow advanced courses in the above fields.
Course contents:
Fundamentals of soil and plant science. Exemplary agricultural systems in temperate and tropical environments are analysed in a very condensed form, covering 4 disciplines Soil Science, Plant nutrition, Plant breeding & genetics and Phytomedicine.Examination requirements:
- Soil Science: Physical properties (texture, soil water, pore space), chemical properties (buffering, exchange capacity, nutrients), biological properties (organic matter, edaphon), soil formation and classification.
- Plant nutrition: Role of major and minor elements in plants, nutrient availability and nutrient mobilisation, plant nutrients and food quality
- Plant breeding and genetics: plant morphology, genetics and breeding: principles ofplant domestication and use, characterization and evaluation, use of genetic resources in plant breeding, genetic basis for plant breeding.
- Plant protection: principles of plant pathology and entomology, genetics of plant diseases,
epidemiology, plant defence mechanisms; insect physiology and ecology, principal approaches to designing integrated control programs.
- Dozent:in: Gunter Backes
- Dozent:in: Andreas Bürkert
- Dozent:in: Vincent John Martin Noah Linus Felde
- Dozent:in: Maria Renate Finckh
- Dozent:in: Sophie Graefe
- Dozent:in: Bernd Horneburg
- Dozent:in: Stephan Peth
- Dozent:in: Helmut Saucke
This course starts in the second half of the semester on January 4 2021.
As of now much of the course will be held via Zoom with joint discussions and presentations.
Topics included will be (Among others):
- Plant Health Management in Organic Agriculture: General principles including diversification strategies and effects of regenerative agricultural methods on plant health.
- Genetics of resistance including induced resistance and new insights into the RNAi.
- Nematological and virological approaches.
- Laboratory and molecular methods in plant pathology.
- Insect pest ecological approaches and direct management approaches.
- Interactions of pesticides with plant and system health: example of Glyphosate.
- Dozent:in: Maria Renate Finckh
- Dozent:in: Helmut Saucke
- Dozent:in: Adnan Sisic
- Dozent:in: Maria Renate Finckh
- Dozent:in: Jan Henrik Schmidt