Spring PEPS 410
Sustainable Soil and Plant Health Management
Lecture/Lab: F 8:30 am – 12:20 pm
Magoon 101B
Credits: 2 (1 lecture, 1 lab)
Instructor: Dr. Koon-Hui Wang (koonhui@hawaii.edu)
Students will:
1) learn about beneficial above and below ground organisms that can promote or protect
plant health in agroecosystems.
2) gain hands-on experience in managing plant and soil health through sustainable
approaches.
3) practice developing integrated pest management programs or soil conservation plans
through field trials, interacting with extension agents/specialists, farmers and NRCS
agents.
Using outdoor training class rooms, students will have opportunities to learn about:
Sustainable crop production Cover cropping Benefits of vermicomposting Insectary planting systems Taro loi nutrient and pest management Mushroom cultivation Week
1
Lecture/Lab/Field Trip
Lecture 1: Introduction to the soil food web
Lab 1: Learn methods to extract soil organisms (including beneficial and pest
species), observe soil organisms under the microscope, recognize soil
invertebrates from 5 major trophic groups in the soil food web, compare
diversity and richness of soil samples collected from different ecosystems.
Section I: Conserving beneficial organisms
2
Lecture 2: Use of cover crops to enhance beneficial soil organisms and
suppress pests
Lab 2: At Magoon teaching plot, plant 6 different cover crops, learn about
techniques to monitor plant and soil health (take soil samples, separate rootknot infected plants from rhizobium colonized roots, recognize healthy vs
unhealthy root systems, monitor soil compaction), design an insectary garden,
bee hotel and set up pit fall traps for weeks #4 and 5.
3
Lecture 3: Insectary plants (IP) for insect pest management
Lab 3: Visit native plant nursery by H1 highway (Guest speaker, DR. Joe
DeFrank) to evaluate native plants as insectary crops, learn about installing
artificial housing (wasps nesting blocks) to attract beneficials, and later
introduce them to an agroecosystem.
4
Lecture 4: Benefits and challenges of conservation tillage.
Lab 4: Install an insectary garden – transplant pak choi and corn surrounded by
insectary plants as border crops (direct seed cilantro, buckwheat, sunn hemp)
using class design developed from Week 2. Install a non-insectary control plot.
Build a bee/wasp hotel at Student Organic Farm Training plots.
5
Lecture 5: Irrigation water management
Introduce “Checkbook method” for water management at Magoon. Student’s
short presentation on agricultural systems that would increase WUE. Learn how
to irrigate precisely. Monitor arthropods in pit fall traps using scanner, maintain
insectary/non-insectary plots.
6
Lecture 6: Enhancement of beneficial soil microorganisms for plant health
improvement: PGPR, mycorrhizae
Lab 6: Learn to maintain a vermicompost bin, cure vermicompost, and brew
vermicompost tea (VCT). Using the insectary plot established, separate each
crop into 6 sections. These sections will be drenched with 1) VCT from cured
vermicompost, 2) VCT from uncured vermicompost, 3) VCT from partially
cured vermicompost, 4) CT from oyster mushroom compost, 5) water control at
weekly intervals; vs 6) soil amended with vermicompost, and 7) mushroom
compost at transplanting. Monitor plant height and chlorophyll content
periodically.
7
Lecture 7: Enhancement of beneficial soil organisms for inducing host plant
resistance against pests: SAR, ISR
Lab 7: Monitor insects in the insectary trial, visit different fields at Magoon and
SOFT garden for caterpillars and other insects, and inoculated with
entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) to be used for Lab 8. Take home
assignment: students will be given a jar to collect a soil sample (not from
Magoon) to bait for EPN using 5 meal worm larva and bring the jar back to
class the following week. Turn in lab note book (Lab 1-7) for evaluation.
Section II: Augmentation of beneficial organisms
8
Lecture 8: Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) for insect control. Student
short presentation to share successful EPN projects throughout the world.
Lab 8: Visit Nematology Lab (Dr. Brent Sipes) to learn EPN rearing
techniques, set up white trap for insect larva inoculated last week, learn about
EPN distribution in Hawaii, monitor EPN for the next two weeks.
9
Lecture 9: Mushroom cultivation and use of mushroom compost. Student short
presentation to share different benefits of mushroom and its cultivation.
Lab 9: Count EPN collected from Lab 8. Monitor plant height and chlorophyll
content from Lab 6. Monitor insects in the insectary trial. Monitor bees/wasps
hotel, and wasps nesting blocks.
10
Lecture 10: Natural Farming concepts: Fukuoka Natural Farming,
permaculture, veganic culture, Korean Natural Farming (KNF), biointensive
organic farming.
Lab 10: Prepare IMO 1-4, practice to use KNF calculator to prepare KNF foliar
inputs, Type II, Type III, SOS, SES solutions, and how to prepare nutrient
inputs using farm waste. Count EPN from Lab 8.
11
Lecture 11: Potential of biological control agents or biological based pesticide
against plant-parasitic nematodes.
Lab 11: Observe natural enemies of nematodes under microscope -- Predatory
nematodes, nematode-trapping fungi, nematode egg parasite, Pasturia. Collect
natural farming nutrient inputs prepared on week 10, harvest cover crop
biomass from cover crop plots, dry in oven to get dry biomass. Learn to use
Cover Crop Calculator to estimate plant available nutrients (PAN) from cover
crop residues.
Section III: Integrated approaches
12
Lab 12: Field trip
Visit commercial loi (wetland taro), practice problem solving in aquatic crop
production (a scenario where no pesticide is allowed) with a soil salinity issue.
All students must write a 2 page suggestion in their lab note book on how to
recommend plant and soil health management for this farm based on their
observations and interview with farmer. Use all the information you learned
from previous lectures. Please type (12 point font, single line spacing) and print
it out, paste it in your note book.
13
Good Friday
14
Lecture 13: Integrated root disease management approaches for organic
farming
Lab 13: Wrap up all data collection, work with instructor and TA for data
analysis.
15
Student team project presentation. Turn in lab note book (Lab 8-13).
Final Exam