A course for technicians, gardeners and horticulturalists that need to know in detail horticultural pest and disease identification and control, with chemical and biological solutions and safety procedures and practices.

THE MAIN WAYS OF CONTROLLING PESTS OR DISEASES ARE AS FOLLOWS:

• Sanitation - maintaining good hygiene
• Physical control methods e.g. mowing, slashing, burning, flooding, hand removal, physical barriers (ie. netting, fences), etc.
• Using plant varieties that are resistant to pests and diseases
• Biological controls
• Chemical controls (artificial and naturally derived).
• Soil drenches/dips

This course takes a "wholistic approach, giving appropriate consideration to all of these "methods", without bias toward any particular method

There are 10 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction: scientific names, terms, diagnosing problems
2. Control Techniques: biological and chemical techniques, alternative methods
3. Chemicals: characteristics of chemicals
4. Identifying Diseases: symptoms, fungi and viruses and other pathogens
5. Disease Control: life cycle of fungi
6. Insect Classification: biology and insect classification
7. Insect Control: how to control pests
8. Non Insect Pests: nematodes, snails, centipedes, etc.
9. Chemical Weed Control: weed identification
10. Non?chemical Weed Control: natural control methods

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

• Identify the broad category which a plant health problem belongs to.
• Explain a range of methods for controlling plant problems.
• Select appropriate chemical pesticides for different problems.
• Identify the symptoms of different plant diseases, including most common and some uncommon problems, in your locality.
• Develop procedures to control specific plant diseases.
• Identify different insects, including significant taxonomic orders, common pest species, and some less common pest species
• Determine appropriate methods to control different types of insects.
• Identify different non-insect pests found in the learner's locality.
• Determine appropriate control methods for different non-insect pests.
• Identify different non-insect pests found in the learner's locality.
• Determine appropriate control methods for different non-insect pests.
• Manage the control of different types of weed problems.