Crop Protection

Code: FIT13091L

6 ECTS

Duration: 15 weeks/156 hours

Scientific Area: Agronomy

Teaching languages: Portuguese

Languages of tutoring support: Portuguese, English

Regime de Frequência: Presencial

Sustainable Development Goals

2. Erradicar a fome - Acabar com a fome, alcançar a segurança alimentar e melhoria da nutrição e promover a agricultura sustentável.

4. Educação de qualidade - Assegurar a educação inclusiva, e equitativa e de qualidade, e promover oportunidades de aprendizagem ao longo da vida para todos.

9. Indústria, inovação e infraestruturas - Construir infraestrutura resiliente, promover a industrialização inclusiva e sustentável, e fomentar a inovação.

12. Produção e consumo sustentáveis - Assegurar padrões de produção e de consumo sustentáveis.

15. Proteger a vida terrestre - Proteger, recuperar e promover o uso sustentável dos ecossistemas terrestres, gerir de forma sustentável as florestas, combater a desertificação, deter e reverter a degradação da Terra e deter a perda da biodiversidade.

17. Parcerias para a implementação dos objetivos - Fortalecer os meios de implementação e revitalizar a parceria global para o desenvolvimento sustentável.

Learning Goals

To acquire knowledge and training to:
1. Observe and describe symptomatologies possibly due to diseases and/or pests and to be able to recognize weed presence in a crop.
2. List agents capable of causing field symptoms by comparison to those described in literature: manuals, compendia, CDs and
internet sites.
3. Collect representative samples from field plants, to further use in simple diagnostic tests for tentative identification of pathogen, pest or weed.
4. Recognize and describe progression patterns of field symptoms (disease, pest, weed) to use possible limitation means.

Block A. Plant Pathology.
1. Definition of plant disease and types of causing agents.
2. Disease development and factors that favors them.
3. Symptoms and physiological alterations induced in hosts by pathogens.
4. Morphology and biological properties of the most important pathogens
5. Basic methods to use in the field and in the laboratory for tentative diagnosis and aetiology determination of a given disease.
6. Examples and brief description of diseases of important crops and some means of control.

Block B. Entomology.
1. Study of morphological and biological properties of the main orders of insecta.
2. Brief description of some important agricultural pests. Symptoms, biological cycles and control means.

Block C. Plant weeds.
Definition of weed and of plant parasite.
Type of damages caused to agricultural crops.
Botanical classification and biology of most important weeds and useful means of control.

Teaching Methods

The followed methodology of teaching of this course will involve lectures, laboratory and field classes. These will take place in grape vineyards, olive, stone and pome orchards, and other crops to be familiar with the diversity of organisms present and the critical observation of the sanitary status of the crop visited. Samples of symptomatic plants will be collected, and brought to the laboratory for parasite identification. Lecture classes will make generous use of images (power points, videos) of diseased material, pests and weeds. Students were encouraged to search for scientific information in internet sites, databases (b-on) and other sources.

Assessment

There will be 2 written tests during the semester or, alternatively, a final exam that will cover the entire course. The weighting of each written test, to calculate the final average, is defined according to the percentage/module evaluated. This value is obtained based on the number of classes evaluated in each written test. For example, if the total number of given classes was 15 and the first written test covered the subjects taught in 6 classes, the score obtained in that assessment will correspond to 40% of the final score, based on written tests. Correspondingly, the second written test will account for 60% of the final score.
In each evaluation (tests and/or exams) students must obtain a score of 10 points (50%), to obtain the final approval of the discipline. There will be a practical laboratory test on phytopathology, which has a weighting of 0.35, of the phytopathology component.