ENT5211 - Insect Pest Management Online, Fall Semester 2009: 3 cr.  ENT 5211 is offered fall semester each academic year as a classroom taught course by the Department of Entomology at the Univesity of Minnesota. In the future, we anticipate being able to offer the course online with prerecorded lectures will be available online and available for purchase as DVDs.  In 2009, credit for online study will only available for self-directed study arranged with one of the course instructors.  Instructors: Edward B. Radcliffe and William D. Hutchison. If you have comments or questions relative to this course or the materials posted on this site, send us an e-mail message. View class syllabus for Fall Semester 2009.

Course Description: In ENT 5211, we examine the philosophy and implementation of insect pest management, an essential component of most Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Sustainable Agriculture systems. Insect pest management can be defined as the practice of preventing or suppressing damaging populations of insect pests by application of the comprehensive and coordinated integration of multiple control tactics. The tactics are the various control methodologies, e.g., biological, chemical, cultural. The strategies are the planned manipulations undertaken to optimize the dynamic integration of control methodologies in the context of their economic, environmental and social consequences. The philosophy is holistic, but deeply rooted in applied ecology. In this course, we survey various control tactics and consider strategies for optimizing their integration into insect pest management programs. Our primary emphasis is on the management of insect pests of agricultural crops.

Text:1) Radcliffe, E. B., W. D. Hutchison and R. E. (eds.) (2008). Integrated Pest Management: Concepts, Tactics, Strategies and Case Studies. Cambridge University Press, and 2) Radcliffe, E. B., W. D. Hutchison and R. E. Cancelado, Radcliffe's IPM Textbook and other pages on the WWW.

Intended Audience: Upper division undergraduates and graduate students, and agricultural professionals with an interest in crop protection. Both majors and non-majors are welcome.

Class time: To be arranged..

Workload: Approximately 30 pages of assigned reading per week (3-4 h per wk). Prior to each class meeting participants will be expected to have familiarity with the week's reading assignments.

Weekly Assignments: Most weeks there will be open-book, problem solving assignments (estimated 1-2 h per wk). Problems requiring essay responses are to answered in 500 words or less. 

Term Paper: Students will critically review some aspect of IPM implementation, e.g., IPM for a commodity or key pest(s).  Reviews should be approximately 3000 words of text plus a reasonably extensive bibliography.  Students may choose to write their reviews of subjects in which they have a personal interest, but should consult with the instructor in advance to assure that the proposed subject and scope will satisfy course requirements.  

 

Final Exam:  The final will be a 2 h essay exam. The final will count for 30% of the final grade.

Grading: In total 12 "weekly" assignments ("quizzes") will be given, each will be graded on a 1-5 scale, the 10 highest scores will contribute 50% to  the final grade.  There will be loss of a letter grade for answers to assignments not returned for grading within two weeks of assignment. The final written exam will contribute #0% to the final gradfe. The term paper ("review") will contribute 20% of the final grade.  For a more detailed explanation of scoring see 2009 Grading Standards.

Key References: The assigned textbooks (see above) and other pages on the WWW. Recommended printed references include:

Dent, D. (2000), Insect Pest Management, C.A.B. International.

Metcalf, R. L. and W. H. Luckmann [eds.] (1994), Introduction to Insect Pest Management, 3rd edition, Wiley-Interscience.

Pedigo, L. P. (1996), Entomology and Pest Management, 2nd Edition, Prentice-Hall.