Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Universität Kassel/Witzenhausen
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.