Extramural course information

This paper is designed primarily as a stand-alone paper to give you a good grounding in the principles of controlling weeds. It is suitable for students from applied science areas who may wish to apply these principles in their chosen fields of agriculture, horticulture or forestry. It is also suitable for science students to show how principles of ecology, plant biology and chemistry can be used to provide control of unwanted vegetation and lead to viable career options.

Extramural students who have taken the paper in the past come from many walks of life. These include farmers, growers, noxious plants officers, Department of Conservation employees, chemical company representatives, quarantine officers, organic farmers, green-keepers, small-block farmers and farm advisors. Although the paper covers broad principles, it does allow each student to specialise and thus gain maximum benefit for themselves.

Our objectives

As a student enrolled in 171.385 Controlling Weeds, at the completion of the paper you will be:

• Able to understand how to use information on the biology of any specific weed species to improve effectiveness of its control.
  
• Able to understand herbicides well enough to be able to select the most appropriate compound for any weed situation and obtain maximum effectiveness from that herbicide without causing damage to crop plants.
  
• Familiar enough with alternative weed control techniques that such techniques can be used in conjunction with herbicides or instead of them whenever appropriate.
  
• Able to integrate their knowledge of weed biology, weed control techniques and field research procedures to design an effective and safe weed control programme for any crop or enterprise.
  

Recommended prior learning

Although designed as a stand-alone paper, applied science students may find it advantageous if they have completed one of the papers that introduces weed control principles, such as 171.102 Plants in Agriculture, 171.202 Pasture and Crop Agronomy or 171.284 Understanding Plant Protection. Alternatively, for BSc students, 120.101 Biology of Plants is a pre-requisite paper.

Course overview

There is no vacation course with this paper. Course contents are delivered through three study guides. A weed collection and assignments are completed from home. Optional tutorial information and on-line resources are available through these web pages.

The study guides cover the following material:

• Study Guide One: Characteristics of weeds; origin of New Zealand weeds; techniques for preventing further weeds from arriving; biological control of weeds; biology of weed seeds; management of weed seeds; biology of perennial weeds; cultivation of weeds; weed competition; factors influencing the weed flora.
  
• Study Guide Two: Herbicide toxicity and legislation; types of herbicide activity; herbicide formulation; behaviour of herbicides in plants; behaviour of herbicides in soil; herbicide application; characteristics of herbicides.
  
• Study Guide Three: Economics of weed control programmes; typical New Zealand weed control programmes; herbicide resistance; obtaining weed control information; designing a weed control programme.
  

Assessment for the paper involves the following components:

• A small assignment designed to improve exam technique and also to test the student's understanding of parts of the first study guide (5%).
  
• A weed collection of 40 species to improve the student's ability to identify weeds (15%).
  
• A comprehensive analysis of a weed control programme on a property selected by the student as being most relevant to their situation (15%).
  
• A 3-hour exam to test the student's understanding of the principles taught within the course (65%).
  

Workload

This paper is worth 15 credits, which we offer at several different times each year. It can be taken over both Semester 1 and 2 (February to November). For this option, you are expected to allocate about 6 hours per week to study over the 26-week academic year. You should enrol in December for this double semester offering. We now also offer the paper over a single semester, both in the spring semester (July to November) and the summer semester (November to February). With the single semester version, you would be expected to dedicate about 12 hours per week to the course. You need to enrol a month or so before the start of each semester to ensure you receive your material on time ready to start in Week 1.

Enrolment and Cost

To enrol for any of these options, ring 0800-MASSEY (0800-627-739) to obtain an enrolment pack. The cost of the paper is $559.25.