Corso di Laurea in Produzioni e Gestione degli Animali in Allevamento e Selvatici - PGAAS

The course contributes to reach the Bachelor learning objectives by promoting basic knowledge of the environmental and applied botany, and of agronomy and herbaceous crops. The course aims to provide the student with the tools and knowledge to identify main crops and the main plant species composing natural coenoses of interest for livestock and wildlife, as well as prevalent crop techniques and agronomic systems. 

 

 

The student is expected to gain knowledge of the specific content of the course and be able to:

• identify main cereal and other industrial crops;
• identify the coltural phenologic stage of main crops;
• identify seeds and/or fruits of main crops;
• recognize main abiotic and biotic adversities affecting crops;
• properly fill technical field forms;
• recognize main meadow forage herbs;
• recognize main types of forage plants and the structures for their conservation;
• estimate the water balance of a crop.

 

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

The aim is to present the main environmental and agronomic factors with respect to the atmosphere-soil-crop system, giving to the students the capacity to explain the significance and the importance

APPLYING KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

The  course intends to present the appropriate technical language useful to describe the agriculture activities with particular attention to the main arable crops and animal production systems.

INDEPENDENT JUDGEMENT

The aim is to assure to the student the analytical and autonomous capacity to comprehend the relationship among the environmental constrains and the crop practices that could be applied in the field

COMMUNICATION SKILLS

The aim is to assure to the student the use of appropriate and updated technical terms related to the agronomic science

In the edition 2019-20 videos with comments to slides are provided instead of front lectures, due to the sanitary emergence. All study resources are uploaded on Moodle. The same platform contains papers, videos and links to online resources focused on specific themes. 

Part of lectures are devoted to commenting study resources, group working, prepration to the final exam and to answer questions posed by the students. These lectures, as well as practical experiences, will take place in the second part of the course, hopefully in a classroom or alternatively online using Webex.

Students are kindly requested to register at Moodle (follow the link at the bottom of this page).

Lessons will be held in classroom and outdoor (see Programma for partitioning). During fieldwork the student will be organized in small groups. They will experience several crop situations and verify the effects of the interactions of the crop practices with the environment. They will also fill technical templates and perform simple computation exercises based on field assessments with a problem solving approach.  

 

In the edition 2019-20 students will be examined only orally using the Webex platform, due to the sanitary emergence.

The exam consists of a written and a practical test (the second one is aimed to verify competences in the identification of the main crops, their phenology, main seeds and fruits, suffered abiotic and biotic stress, forage types and their conservation). The written test, aimed to assess theoretical knowledge, consists of 3 open questions plus 2 short or multiple choice questions. Each open question sums to a maximum of 8/30, each other question sums to a maximum of 3/30. Minimum passing grade is 18/30. The practical test consists in the identification of plants, parts of plants, seeds and fruits in form of samples or slides. Three identifications are proposed,  each one summing to a maximum of 10/30. The final note is the weighted average of the written test (70% weight) and the practical test (30%). Both tests must be taken and passed on the same exam session.

No interim test will be offered

 

During the course, support activities (identification of the fore mentioned items) will be offered on request of the students. During the week prior to the exam dates, a review will be offered on request of the students to improve preparation and clarify specific topics. 

 During the course a lesson is dedicated on bibliographic research and on the evaluation of the information resources on web and on the technical magazine.

 

Outline on soil property (definition, texture, structure, hydrology) and on agro-metereorology.

Basic concept and description of the main crop practices: soil tillage, irrigazion, fertilization, weed control, crop rotation.

Relevance, diffusion, botanical aspects, ecology, breeding and selection outline, specific crop techniques, harvest and storage, utilization and qualitative properties of the principal crops.

Crops that will be considered are: small cereals (wheat, barley, rye, oat), maize, sorghum, oily crops (soybean, sunflower, canola), forage crops (fodder crop, artificial meadow, pasture) and the crop system for the different animal production.

Knowledge of chemistry, ecology, plant biology and animal biology are preparatory.