055714 Land Resources and Crop Production in the Tropics - A

Details
Department of Agricultural Sciences   81 %
Department of Natural Sciences   19 %
Earliest Possible Year7
Duration1 semester
 
Credits15 (ECTS)
Course LevelJoint BSc and MSc
 
Examinationwritten examination


Aid allowed

Description of Examination: 13-point scale, internal examiner

Dates of Exam:

and approval of exercise reports
 
Organisation of TeachingLectures: 2 course modules per week Practicals: 8 hours per week
 
Block PlacementE2, fall

E3, fall
Monday and thursday 13-17

 
Teaching LanguageEnglish
 
Optional Prerequisites055511 Plant Growth Factors and Crop Physiology
 
Course Objectives
LRCP-A provides students, having a BSc-level background in fundamental agricultural sciences or equivalent, a comprehensive understanding of soil, water, and plant nutrient characteristics and processes and crop production in tropical rainfed and irrigated agro-ecosystems including both low and high potential areas. Focus is on bio-physical related production constraints and opportunities in small-scale farming systems, within the context of poverty alleviation and sustainable land use.
 
Course Contents
Rationale:
The course is a core course in the MSc Agricultural Development programme for students wishing to specialise in tropical crop production and natural resources management, and is simultaneously an opportunity for BSc and MSc students from other programmes at KVL and elsewhere. LRCP is designed to support the more advanced MSc level course LRCP-B (00 00 00), but can also be taken as a stand-alone course.

Course content:
The course focuses on capacity development in core discipline areas while being interdisciplinary by integrating several disciplines in a holistic analysis of the biological, chemical and physical characteristics and processes in tropical soil-plant-atmosphere systems of relevance for crop production. The course is divided in three major phases accordingly:
i. Introduction : tropical agriculture and natural resources management, constraints and opportunities, and development issues; tropical climate; agro-ecosystems and farming systems; case studies);
ii. Fundamentals : soils; agrohydrology; bioclimatology; soil fertility; plant nutrition; crops; and
iii. Management , applications and integration within selected agro-ecosystems and farming systems including: land and water management design principles and practices (tillage; irrigation and drainage; sloping land management; water harvesting; integrated watershed development and management); nutrient cycling, an outline of fertilizers and fertilization, and integrated nutrition of selected crops; weed control; selected crops, cropping systems, post-harvest technology and breeding.
 
Teaching And Learning Methods
The course combines lectures and theoretical exercises with individual/group work. Integration across disciplines is enhanced by addressing the same typology and set of agro-ecosystems, farming systems and crops in all course elements, and by using a common dataset with comprehensive case studies as the basis for all exercises where possible. The selected agro-ecosystems, farming systems and crops include inter alia: humid, semi-arid and highlands zones: maize and wetland rice based cropping systems; rainfed and irrigated conditions; and sloping lands.
 
Course Litterature
Compendium of selected texts.
Compilation of case studies
Exercise book
 
Course Coordinator
Jens Raunsø Jensen, jrj@life.ku.dk, Department of Agriculture and Ecology/Environment, Resources and Technology, Phone: 35333387
Ole Kragholm Borggaard, okb@life.ku.dk, Department of Natural Sciences/Soil and Environmental Chemistry, Phone: 35332419
Jens Carl Streibig, jcs@life.ku.dk, Department of Agricultural Sciences/Crop Science, Phone: 35333457
Error. Person Not Found 
Jørgen Lindskrog Christiansen, jlc@life.ku.dk, Department of Agricultural Sciences/Crop Science, Phone: 35333452
Hans Christian Bruun Hansen, haha@life.ku.dk, /VIVA - Knowledge about Water, Phone: 3528
 
Study Board
Study Committee NSN
 
Course Scope
lectures84
practicals196
examination4
preparation31
preparation135
0
0

450