Teaching Plant
Pathology in a Changing World
Liyun Guo
and Jianqiang Li
Department of Plant Pathology
China Agricultural University, Beijing
P. R. China
Introduction
In the past few years, the teaching systems in the universities
of China have gone through many changes. One of the major
changes is aimed at providing education to students with varying
backgrounds. To fulfill this objective, the course system
has changed by providing more diverse courses and courses with
more general content. Here, we will share our experiences
on designing a plant pathology course for students majoring in
Horticulture in China, to reflect the trend of this change and
our efforts to meet the challenge, as we were one of the first
to establish this course in China.
Meeting the challenge of a changing world
Before 2000, the undergraduate students in horticulture
at the China Agricultural University specialized in one of three
major areas: fruit trees, vegetables, or ornamental plants.
For each area, there were 30 enrollments each year. The plant
pathology courses provided for student majoring in fruit tree,
vegetable and ornamental plants were Diseases of Fruit Trees,
Diseases of Vegetables, and Disease of Ornamental Plants, respectively.
Each course was 60 hours long and set up as a basic requirement
for students in each area. Students were not allowed to
substitute another course for their required course. Starting
in 2000, these three majors were combined into a single major,
horticulture, with around 120 students entering the program each
year. Consequently, Disease Management of Horticultural
Plants, a 48 h plant pathology course emphasizing the diseases
of a variety of horticultural plants, was established as a contribution
to the new Core Curriculum Program. This course consists
of sixteen 2-hour lectures, six 2-hour lab sections and a half
day field trip (Table 1).
Because this course is taught to student majoring
in horticulture, it should cover diseases of fruit trees, vegetables,
and ornamental plants. It was a real challenge for us to
combine the content of three courses into one shorter course.
One of our strategies is to spend less time on the introduction
of individual diseases of each type of plant. Instead, we
give a general introduction of representative diseases and place
more emphasis on the integrated management of several diseases
on a host or host group. For example, powdery mildew, downy
mildew, gray mold, and Phytophthora root rot, affect
many plants including fruit trees, vegetables, and ornamental
plants. So, we now present a general introduction of these
diseases, the characteristics of the pathogens, the environmental
factors that affect the development and epidemic of these diseases,
and the general control methods. We then use an example
to discuss integrated diseases management on a plant or plant
group. For example, one of our topics is “integrated
disease management in peach orchards”. In the lecture,
we not only discuss the major diseases on peach trees in China,
and the effective control methods, but we also discuss the effects
of multiple factors on the health of the plant, such as the peach
varieties available, the site of the orchard, the types of plants
in the surrounding area, the lay out of the rows, the irrigation
methods used, the stands of the trees, and the management practices
used.
Although the economy of China is growing very fast,
there are big variations between different areas, especially in
terms of agriculture production. Because we are one of the
predominant universities in China, our students originate from
many diverse parts of the country. In addition, the growth
of the economy and change in trading practices has influenced
the public in China and their attitudes toward agriculture products.
So, in addition to adjusting to basic changes in the organization
of the curriculum, we also need to make the course relevant to
the current situation of agricultural production in China.
To accomplish this, we carefully selected the examples we use
in case studies to reflect these different situations. In
one case we discussed how a change in consumer behavior influences
vegetable production and its relation to disease control practices.
In addition, we think active study is a key element to help students
manage the information they learn in the course and to apply the
knowledge they have gained in the future. So we have developed
different assignments designed to better motivate the students.
Examples include, having the students prepare a poster to present
what they have learned in the class to the public, or giving a
PowerPoint presentation on a specific disease they are interested
in to the class. Each year, we were surprised by the enthusiasm
of the students for these projects.
Table 1. Syllabus for Plant Pathology
| Lecture |
Week and date |
Main content |
| 1 |
1 (9/6) |
Course introduction
1) The importance of plant diseases
2) The concept of plant disease, disease triangle
3) Bases for grouping plant diseases |
| 2 |
1 (9/9) |
The symptoms and
signs of disease
The causes of diseases
Non-infectious diseases |
| 3 |
2 (9/13) |
The causes of diseases
Plant pathogenic fungi |
| 4 |
2 (9/16) |
The causes of diseases
Plant pathogenic fungi |
| 5 |
3 (9/20) |
The causes of diseases
Plant pathogenic prokaryotic micro-organisms |
| 6 |
3 (9/23) |
The causes of diseases
Plant viruses |
| 7 |
4 (9/27) |
The causes of diseases
Plant pathogenic nematodes\parasitic higher plants |
| 8 |
4 (9/30) |
Disease
development:
1) The concept of pathogenicity of pathogen and the resistance
of plant hosts
2) Disease progress |
| |
5 (10/4) |
National Holiday |
| |
5 (10/7) |
National Holiday |
| 9 |
6 (10/11) |
Disease
development:
Disease
epidemics and forecasting |
| 10 |
6 (10/14) |
Disease
diagnosis: Koch’s postulates |
| 11 |
7 (10/18) |
Disease
diagnosis: How to do it |
| 12 |
7 (10/21) |
Disease
control methods and IPM |
| 13 |
8 (10/25) |
Case:
Some important vegetable diseases |
| 14 |
8 (10/28) |
Case:
Integrated disease management of vegetable diseases |
| 15 |
9 (11/1) |
Case: Integrated
disease management for ornamental plants |
| 16 |
9 (11/4) |
Case: Diseases
of fruit trees |
In the future
The establishment of this course has included several
steps, starting from the writing of a new text book and the updating
of lab sections. Once, the material was taught as part of
the Plant Protection course, but then it was separated out after
one year. The current syllabus reflects the methods of teaching
in the past three years. We have received positive feedback
from both students and a course review panel. Currently,
we are working on a courseware package that will allow the student
to review course materials after class. Under a new regulation
from the Chinese Minister of Education, the Curriculum Program
is subject to amendment every four years.
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