212-304 Plant Production

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

606-023 Agricultural Botany, 521-024 Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 212-201 Soil Resources.

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

Potential and actual production. Factors limiting productivity. Efficiency of production. Intra- and inter-specific competition. Effect of weeds. Modes of action, methods of application and role of herbicides. Availability of water and nutrients. Water flow through crops and pastures, relationship to growth and yield. Productivity and management of rain-fed agriculture. Principles of irrigation. Components of yield in crops and pastures. Growth and development. Legumes as components of communities and rotations. Final and seasonal production. Nutrient cycling. Dynamics of re-establishment of annual pastures. Infectious agents and their effect on growth, yield and quality. Diagnosis and treatment. Crop protection and integrated pest management. Practical Work: Practical classes in plant protection and a research project conducted in residence at the Longerenong Campus.

On completion of this subject students should: be aware of the potential productivity of crops and pastures in temperate Australian agriculture; appreciate many of the physical, biological and environmental constraints which limit productivity; be aware of important agronomic and disease control practices used in the management of crops and pastures.

Assessment

A 3-hour written examination (60%); a practical examination (10%), a literature review (10%) and a report on the Longerenong excursion (20%). Students are also required to submit an accurately named collection of 80 plants of agricultural significance, including at least 20 grasses. A pass in the subject requires individual passes in the written examination plus the literature review and in the remaining practical components taken as group.

Prescribed Texts

• Agrios G N, Plant Pathology. 3rd ed., 1988 Academic Press.
• Pearson C J and Ison R L (eds), Agronomy of Grassland Systems. 1987 CUP.
• Loomis R S and Connor D J, Crop Ecology: Productivity and Management in Agricultural Systems. 1992 CUP.