On successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1	Identify the major commercial horticultural varieties, pests and diseases in annual and perennial crops in Australia.
2	Explain how diverse horticultural industries contribute to food culture, environmental resilience, and economic opportunity.
3	Compare and contrast the differences in physiology and related management of several horticultural crops.
4	Explain best practice in management and use of technology within an industry domain.
5	Create an implementation program for a new crop enterprise.

This course is delivered as an intensive in Winter School.

A student enrolled in a 3 unit course, such as this, should expect to spend, on average 12 hours per week on the studies required. This includes both the formal contact time required to the course (e.g., lectures and practicals), as well as non-contact time (e.g., pre-class preparation, post-class assessments, reading and revision).

Horticulture is a diverse field covering many different kinds of crops, from fast growing bean shoots, to slow growing walnuts and everything between. In order to cover the breadth and depth, we chose to design the course around five industry domains and five knowledge domains. The five industry domains are protected cropping, field vegetable crops, perennial tree & vine crops, amenity horticulture, and peri-urban & innovative horticulture. The five knowledge domains cover industry structure, propagation & crop management, postharvest & supply chain, plant health (nutrition, pests & diseases) and irrigation –are fundamental to production of fresh food crops and are relevant to all industry domains. The course presents content on all ten areas through lectures, focussing on crops key to the South Australian horticultural sector, and providing reinforcement of all industry and knowledge domains through field tours, hands on practicals, workshops, and discussion groups, with a range of assessments.

Lectures: content delivery as online pre-recorded and live (recorded) sessions with nine SAFW lecturers, all specialists in their fields.

Practicals: hands on practical sessions covering 4 topics: propagation by grafting, pruning of perennial fruit tree crops, and assessing the impact of temperature on shelf life and quality of fresh produce and Irrigation scheduling software/technology. Remote students will have a substitute video experience (grafting & pruning) and an option to undertake a shorter version of the postharvest practical at home.

Field Tours: Students visit diverse industry sites in the Northern Adelaide Plains, Adelaide Hills, and Fleurieu Peninsula to view and appreciate all 5 industry domains, meet industry stakeholders and understand the drivers that affect different enterprises (such as processing, value adding, field and covered production, storage, marketing, price points). As a group, we will ask questions of the growers, at the end of the course there will be a discussion session on the field tours to coalesce knowledge and compare enterprises under set topics that will support exam revision. The 2020 videos of eight enterprises visited, are available for local and remote students.

Discussion groups: create opportunity for deeper understanding on the topics of sustainability and resilience in horticultural systems, and non-traditional horticultural enterprises, with contributions by external stakeholders (eg AusVeg, Potatoes SA, Hort Innovation, permaculture, biodynamic production).


Crop Workshop: focus on specific knowledge domains to extend lecture content though group work on management of horticultural crops. Students participate in a classroom group activity for engagement, feedback and active learning. Students build deeper knowledge of a range of crops through the group activity.


Video Quizzes: four pre-course videos to provide context and prior knowledge.

Pest & ID: The ‘Horticultural Identification Tool’ learning tool (online database), has images and descriptions of varieties and symptoms. Students can undertake the training quizzes quiz as many times as desired, aiming for a hurdle of at least 50% correct. The sequence of image display is randomised so each student experiences the quiz differently each time it is attempted. The training material and quizzes are available two weeks before the course begins.

Attendance on all three field tours expected; so appropriate clothing required (i.e. closed top shoes, dress to daily weather). Attendance at all practicals, workshops and group discussions is expected.
Remote students will be provided with specific resources for the field tours and practical sessions as attendance is not possible. They will be expected to participate (using technology) in the workshops and group discussions.

Assessment Task	Task Type	Due	Weighting	Hurdle?	Learning Outcome
Four online pre-course Quizzes	Formative	Complete before end of 2-week block; Can begin 1 week before course	0%	No	2,3
Crop Elevator Pitch	Formative & Summative	During 2-week block	10%	No	1,3
Practicals A. Propagation & Pruning report B Postharvest report, C Irrigation technology report	Formative & Summative	During 2 week block	25	No	3,4
Consultant Report	Summative	2 weeks after 2-week block	25%	No	1,4,5
Examination Part A. Pest & Disease ID Part B. Written answers	Summative	1 week after 2-week block	40%	Yes	1-4

Assessment Item with Hurdle or compulsory component	% needed to meet hurdle or requirement to meet compulsory component	Is additional assessment available if student does not meet hurdle requirement or compulsory component, if no please explain	If additional assessment is available, explain what type
Written exam	50%	Yes	R/AA exam

Four online quizzes. [0%]
The online quizzes are based on foundational material presented in online videos and currently cover industry structure and figures, propagation and irrigation. . These may be augmented in later years as required.
For the quizzes students are given two attempts to complete each quiz, with indications of correct answer after first attempt. All quizzes will be available to students two weeks before the course begins.

Crop Elevator Pitch [10%]
Supported by lectures on each of the industry domains and their own research, students will research adndsummarise key information for their crop, and present to their peers as an elevator pitch as to why this crop should be a great business investment for a horticultural enterprise in South Australia.

In groups and individually, students will research online for their selected crops to propagate the table of key information. Students will undertake a group activity to share knowledge and undertake active learning. As a group, they will prepare 2 slides and elect a presenter to deliver a 3 minute pitch to the class. This will be assessed in class. 

Consultant’s report [25%]
Each student will select a crop from a provided list (focus on key SA crops) and prepare a report for a hypothetical client who wishes to establish a specific horticultural enterprise. The report will provide recommendations on the type of site (region and soils, minimum property size), crop genetics and sources, crop management, production infrastructure, postharvest handling, marketing, quality assurance and industry links that will support the enterprise. Alternatively, students may select an aspect of technology that spans across many industries (eg robotics, postharvest grading systems)
This assignment will be submitted 2 weeks after the 2-week teaching block has completed.

Practicals: [25%]
Students will participate in three hands-on practicals over the 2 weeks
A Propagation + Pruning;
B: Postharvest assessment) and
C: Irrigation technology.
At the completion of A and B sessions students will hand up a PowerPoint poster to demonstrate understanding of process (grafting & pruning) and results (postharvest), created during the practical sessions. C: Irrigation technology practical will enable exposure to and learning the basics of using a soil moisture sensing platform (software) to enable decision making on irrigation in horticultural crops. Understanding of the software is examined by using the package to propose appropriate irrigation management decisions in a variety of horticultural crops, and to optimise the irrigation practices. These assignments will be submitted during the 2-week teaching block.

Written examination [40%]
The examination will cover pest & disease identification, and material gathered in the lectures, workshops, practicals, discussion groups and field tours. It will consist of an identification quiz, multiple choice, and short written answers. The Pest & Disease ID quiz will take 30 minutes with 50 questions that have been taken from the Horticultural Pest & Disease Identification Training Tools. The multiple choice and short answer components will run over 2 hours. The exam will be presented online and invigilated.

This online exam will be conducted 1 week after the 2-week teaching block has completed.

Late submission of assessments

If an extension is not applied for, or not granted then a penalty for late submission will apply. A penalty of 10% of the value of the assignment for each calendar day that is late (i.e. weekends count as 2 days), up to a maximum of 50% of the available marks will be applied. This means that an assignment that is 5 days or more late without an approved extension can only receive a maximum of 50% of the mark.