72659 - Vegetable Crops

Course contents

Course contents (18 hours)

Lesson 1. Course introduction. General course introduction, course programme, practical experiences, workshops, field visits, teaching material final exam.

Lesson 2. Introduction to sustainable vegetable crop production. Population trends and food security.

Lesson 3. Current status of agricultural production. Introduction to sustainable agriculture.

Lesson 4. Evolution of current agricultural production and sustainable approaches to crop production. Differences between North and South of the world.

Lesson 5. Definition of agroecology. Low input agriculture. Biodynamic and Natural farming. Organic farming. Distribution at world level and case studies from USA, Europe and Italy.

Lesson 6. Vegetable crop production in the urban environment. Experiences in Latin America, Africa, South Easth-Asia. Urban Agriculture in Europe. Simplified soilless systems. Multidisciplinary research experience in urban agriculture.

Lesson 7. Innovative Business models for vegetable crop production in the urban environment.

Lesson 8. Nutrient management in vegetable crops. Traditional nutrient management in the Mediterranean. N balance sheet method. Dynamic N management guided by optical sensors. K, P, Mg, S, Ca, and microelement nutrition.

Lesson 9. Soilless systems for greenhouse vegetable production. Typologies. Closed and open loop systems.

Lesson 10. Water management in vegetable crop production. Plant requirements. Sensors and Decision support systems for dynamic water management in horticulture.

Lesson 11. The mediterranean vegetable crop production sector. Greenhouse systems and typologies.

Lesson 12. Indoor plant cultivation systems. Artificial lighting and LED technology for vegetable crops.

Practical workshops and groupwork (12 hours)

Workshop. Environmental assessment: Life Cycle Assessment in vegetable crops and urban horticulture.

Workshop. Literature review: Searching, analyising, elaborating datasets and research outputs in plant sciences.

Working groups. Designing and presenting a research on vegetable crops.

Workshop: Rooftop Agriculture.

Practical workshop: measuring plant physiological response to environmental stresses. At the experimental greenhouse facilities of DISTAL, measurements with leaf porometer and pressure chamber on salt stressed vegetable crops. Definition of light intensity and spectral composition.

Readings/Bibliography

Teaching material

Syllabus and slides available on AMSCampus

Textbook

Quaryoti M., Baudoin W., Nono Womdin R., Leonardi C., Hanafi A., De Pascale S. 2013. Guidelines on GAP for greenhouse horticulture in the Mediterranean Region. FAO-UN, Rome, Italy. FAO paper, AGP series, 217.

Suggested reading

Orsini, F., Dubbeling, M., de Zeeuw, H., Gianquinto, G., Eds. (2017). Rooftop Urban Agriculture. Springer, The Netherlands. ISBN 978-3-319-57720-3.

Teaching methods

The course consists of theoretical lectures, practical exercises and groupwork in classroom and in greenhouse, technical visits.

Assessment methods

Oral Exam upon appointment by e-mail at f.orsini@unibo.it [mailto:f.orsini@unibo.it] (80%)

Evaluation of the elaborate of the group exercise (20%)

Teaching tools

Powerpoint presentations, exercise, theoretical and practical workshops.

Office hours

See the website of Francesco Orsini