BSc Minor Systems in Plant Production (WUSPP) / BSc

Introduction

The content and learning outcomes of this BSc minor and the BSc minor 'Concepts in Crop Production' are relatively comparable. The main difference is that these BSc minors are scheduled in different semesters.
Plant production is essential to human and animal life. Food security, depletion of natural resources and the need for economically viable, sustainable and socially acceptable cropping and farming systems are topics that will become increasingly important in the light of human population growth. Sound knowledge of plant physiology and ecology is essential for the development of appropriate plant production systems to assure reliable supplies of safe, high quality food, while taking aspects of biodiversity and nature conservation into account. The investments made in plant production need to be protected from losses due to biotic and abiotic stress.
The development of strategies to study and innovate plant production systems requires an integrated, multidisciplinary approach. In this BSc minor students will become familiar with the methods, tools and techniques that are essential to develop systems thinking and a multidisciplinary approach.

This BSc minor is preparatory fo the MSc Plant Sciences, specializations Crop Science, Greenhouse Horticulture and Natural Resource Management.

Learning Outcomes

After successful completion of this minor students are expected to be able to:
- think in and work with energy-, CO2-, and water balances, state and rate variables in relation to the interaction between crop and abiotic environment;
- explain how abiotic factors like radiation, crop temperature and air humidity are measured and to interpret crop growth and product quality measurements;
- describe agro-ecosystems in terms of crop, livestock and associated biodiversity;
- understand the key principles of conservation agriculture, and apply the concept of conservation agriculture under given agro-ecological conditions;
- describe multiple cropping systems including intercropping, crop rotations and agroforestry;
- explain the relationships between primary and secondary production, including analysis of production chains.

BSc Minor Coordinator

Dr G.J. Kuipers
Phone: 0317-(4)82839
Email: anja.kuipers@wur.nl

Target Group

This minor is interesting for WU-students of the BSc-programmes BAT, BBI, BBN, BBW, BIL and BMW.
Other BSc or Ba students in Biology and/or Environmental Sciences.

Components of the BSc Minor

http://www.minors.wur.nl