CPSC30100

Plant disease severely impedes crop yields and quality resulting in the loss of 10% global food production. In Ireland disease caused by plant pathogens threatens cereal and horticultural crop yields as well as forests.
Due to an increased movement of people and plants, together with a changing climate, the range of plant pathogens is moving and expanding. The agricultural and fuel sectors are vulnerable to pathogen attack via natural or introduced pathogen threats. This has important implications for the crop plants that we use for agricultural as well as recreational purposes. Recently crop pathogens have been given widespread news coverage. Managing the assocaited risks requires the ability to monitor, prevent as well as respond effectively to disease events.
Therefore it is important to understand the causes of such disease outbreaks and develop the problem solving skills to develop control solutions. Central to the module is the use of case studies, in class discussion and problem based learning.