PLANT PROTECTION

Learn to Control 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

Lesson Structure

There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction
   • Overview of plant disease
   • Diagnosis of problems: nutritional, environmental, pathological
   • Symptoms
   • Common terminology
2. Types of Diseases
   • Morphological changes
   • Necrosis
   • Hypoplasia's
   • Hyperplasia
   • Types of pathogens: viruses, bacteria, actinomycetes, fungi, nematodes
   • Techniques for diagnosing plant diseases: optical equipment, preparing pathogens for observation, culture methods, inoculation, etc
   • Plant viruses; detection and diagnosis
   • Plant nematodes
   • Case study: Australian plant nematodes
   • Main types of diseases
   • Spots
   • Rots
   • Cankers
   • Galls
   • Mildews
   • Rusts
   • Moulds
   • Wilts
   • Scabs
   • Others
   • Using a key to diagnose diseases in plants
3. The Lifecycle of a Disease
   • Inoculation
   • Penetration
   • Infection
   • Growth and reproduction
   • Dissemination
   • Methods of penetration by bacteria and nematodes
   • Lifecycle of nematodes
   • Fungal biology
   • Role of insect spreading fungal and bacterial pathogens
4. Control Techniques
   • Sanitation
   • Resistant Plant Varieties
   • Biological Controls
   • Soil Drenches/dips
   • Chemical Controls
   • Nematicides
   • Soil fumigants
   • Contact poisons
   • Fungicides and the environment
   • Systemic fungicides
   • Misters, dusters, blowers, sprayers
   • Spray maintenance and cleaning
   • Natural controls: cultural, physical, biological, etc
   • Terminology
5. Selected Pathogen Diseases Ornamentals
   • Fungi affecting turf
   • Phytophthora cinnamomi
   • The process of tree decay: Shigo
   • Case study: how phytophthora cinnamomi kills a susceptible Eucalyptus
   • Peach powdery mildew
   • Rose powdery mildew
   • Honey fungus on rhododendrons and azaleas
   • Petal blight on rhododendrons and azaleas
6. Selected Pathogen Diseases Crops
   • Sclerotinia rot in vegetables
   • Nematodes and citrus production
   • Citrus diseases: scaly butt, lemon crinkle, citrus canker
   • Brown rot
   • Fire blight
   • Apple fruit rot caused by trichoderma harzianum
   • Prunus necrotic ringspot virus in cut flower roses
   • Potato and tomato blight
   • Club root
7. Non-Infectious Diseases
   • Nutritional disorders
   • Lack of water
   • Excess water
   • Other environmental problems
   • Disorders caused by man: mechanical damage, pollution
   • Case Study: Air pollution
   • Other disorders: genetic, disturbed growth
   • Non parasitic turf problems
8. Special Project

Aims

• Describe a range of pathological problems that affect plants.
• Describe symptoms of a range of diseases that affect plants.
• Describe disease life cycles and explain how this knowledge can be applied in disease control
• Explain the methods used to control diseases
• Demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of a particular plant pathogen.
• Identify and describe a range of non-infectious diseases and problems that affect plants
• Identify and describe a range of common pathogens that affect ornamental plants.
• Identify and describe a range of common pathogens that affect crop plants

What You Will Do

• 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.

 START BY UNDERSTANDING HOW DISEASES HAPPEN

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.