Distance Education Course -Controlling Plant Pest and Disease
- Study how to control pest and disease problems on all types of plants
- Learn from experts in identifying and controlling pest and disease on plants
- Flexible 100 hour course for gardeners, farmers, horticulturists, or anyone concerned with plant health management
Course Duration 100 hours
Course Content
- Introduction: scientific names, terms, diagnosing problems
- Control Techniques: biological and chemical techniques, alternative methods
- Chemicals: characteristics of chemicals
- Identifying Diseases: symptoms, fungi and viruses and other pathogens
- Disease Control: life cycle of fungi
- Insect Classification: biology and insect classification
- Insect Control: how to control pests
- Non Insect Pests: nematodes, snails, centipedes, etc.
- Chemical Weed Control: weed identification
- Non‑chemical Weed Control: natural control methods
Examples of what you may do in this course
This course is all about experiential learning -not just reading, but you are given all sorts of practical and research tasks that will build your knowledge and contacts (networking) within the industry, by seeing and doing things in the "real world"; for example:
- Distinguish, in your own words, between broad groups of plant problems, including:
- Fungi
- Insects
- Mites
- Viruses
- Bacteria
- Nematodes
- Nutritional disorders
- Temperature levels
- Moisture levels.
- Develop a plant problem review form, to use for analysis of the health problems of individual plants
- Determine the availability of twenty different agricultural pesticides, including legal restrictions on their supply and use (based on your Set Task for this lesson).
- Write safety guidelines for the use of pesticides, in a specific workplace (selected by you).
- Compare the broad implications of using chemical versus non-chemical pest and disease control methods. You should consider such things as effects on the environment, effects on humans, effects on non-target species, etc.
- Explain, in your own words, a range of non-chemical methods that can be used to control pest or disease problems in plants.
This is an example of some course notes:
STAGES IN DEVELOPMENT OF A DISEASE
1. Inoculation
Occurs when the pathogen comes in contact with the plant.
The actual organisms which come in contact with the plant are called the "inoculum". Any part of the
pathogen which can attack the plant is called "inoculum".
If the inoculum lays dormant over winter then infects the plant in spring, this is called the primary
inoculum, and it is causing a primary infection.
Inoculum produced from this infection is caused secondary inoculum and can cause secondary
infection of the plant.
Inoculum may be present in the soil or in dead plant material near to the plant being affected; or it may be brought in to the area with seed, new plants, soil, on the wheels of a car, on boots or shoes, or
even carried by the wind. Inoculum can survive on weeds or infected plants nearby, and move onto
cultivated plants when conditions are favourable.
2. Penetration
Pathogens move into plants by breaking through the plant surface, by entering through wounds, or through natural openings (such as stomata).
Some fungi only penetrate through one of these methods.
Bacteria mainly enter through wounds.
Viruses and some micro-organisms (micro-plasmas and some bacteria) enter through wounds made by vectors (NB: A vector is a disease carrier... Aphis carry viruses, they inject their mouthpiece into the plant creating a wound and placing the virus inside the plant).
Nematodes normally enter through direct penetration.
3. INFECTION
This is the process by which the pathogen establishes contact with the cells or tissues which it is going to affect. In this stage the pathogen grows and invades parts of the plant which it will infect.
Changes to the plant can be either obvious or obscure at this point. You might see discolouration or necrosis as the disease moves through the plant OR it may be that the changes are microscopic and necrosis or other symptoms are not seen until the next stage (Growth and reproduction).
4. GROWTH and REPRODUCTION
The pathogen now grows and develops within the part of the plant which it inhabits.
It then begins to reproduce itself.
5. DISSEMINATION
Spores or new organisms produced in the growth and reproduction stage are moved to other places where they can sooner or later infect a new plant.
Mostly this dissemination is carried out by agents such as wind, water, insects, animals or man.
