Diagnosis of Diseases of Agricultural and Horticultural Plants

The course deals with plant disease problems in agriculture, horticulture (greenhouses, orchards and field crops and other production systems if possible) and forestry with special reference to North European conditions.

The main aim of the course is to obtain hands-on experience in diagnosis of plant diseases.

After completing the course, the participants should be able to:

Knowledge:

• Describe symptoms caused by plant pathogens
• Describe plant pathogen morphology
• Identify and classify plant pathogens based on morphology
• Obtain an overview of the most important groups of plant pathogens
• Describe, characterise and assess damage in the field
• Process diseased plant samples for further studies
• Understand the theory behind molecular techniques for identification of microorganisms

Skills:

• Use common tools for identifying plant pathogens, incl. web-based ressources
• Apply principles for diagnosis of plant diseases based on disease symptoms and pathogen morphology
• Communicate diagnostic results

Competences:

• Become familiar with symptoms of important plant diseases found under natural conditions
• Work with diagnostic methods
• Use microscopy to study plant pathogen structures to diagnose diseases
• Cooperate with fellow participants when conducting the diagnosis and reporting the results
• Critical appraisal of web-based information tools
• Obtain an overview over different pathogen groups and their most important characteristics