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Crop Production and Management (AGRI20037)

Undergraduate level 2Points: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)

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Overview

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Semester 2
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Field crop production is a major component of Australia’s economy, and landholders manage their resources to balance environmental, economic and social demands. This subject discusses how these resources are managed to produce high quality crop products.

Topics include:

  • An appraisal of the cropping enterprises in southern Australia - the location, scale and nature of cropping enterprises and their contribution to the national economy
  • Growth, development and yield in crop production - definitions and relations between growth and development attributes, yield and yield components, measurement of crop yields, biological and economical yield and harvest index (complemented by field exercises)
  • Environmental constraints limiting productivity - climate and growing season, water and nutrient availability
  • Agronomic management to optimise production and product quality, including water and nutrient management, soil management and rotations
  • Problems and prospects of both dryland and irrigated crop production within farm systems, comparative cost-return analysis, marketing strategies

Intended learning outcomes

The objectives of this subject are to extend the student's ability to:

  • Identify the ecological principles underpinning crop production systems
  • Understand how the processes of growth and development of plants interact with management operations in a crop production system
  • Identify the role and place of selected crops in production systems
  • Develop skills in predicting outcomes from particular management practices on economic and environmental benchmarks

Generic skills

On completion of this subject, the student should have developed the following generic skills:

  • An ability to demonstrate a broad knowledge of fundamental scientific concepts across crop production systems
  • An understanding of the structures of agriculture and related industries and the principal factors that determine location, environmental impact, sustainability, profitability and international trade competitiveness
  • The capacity to apply scientific knowledge to the definition, analysis, and solution of agricultural and environmental problems
  • A capacity for the exchange, acquisition and dissemination of scientific and industry information and for technology transfer

Last updated: 31 January 2024