Plant health under pressure: environmental shifts and legal responses
Course description
How can we protect crops sustainably in a changing world? Do you want to learn how shifting regulations and environmental challenges affect plant protection strategies?
This course is aimed at early-stage PhD students and MSc students from different subject areas, including ecology, entomology, nematology, plant breeding and molecular biology. The beginning of the course provides a solid grounding in plant health through lectures devoted to introducing the fundamental aspects of the subject.
During the rest of the course, you will learn how evolving legislation (such as pesticide restrictions and rules on transgenic plants) in combination with changes in the environment (such as resistance development and climate change) are affecting research and practice in plant protection. Join us to better understand the pressures on plant health, and how innovative, sustainable approaches can address them, and how these factors affect your field of study.
Course facts
P000166, Plant health under pressure: environmental shifts and legal responses, 3.0 Hp
Print syllabus
Syllabus
Finalized by: FUN-LTV, 2025-12-05
Valid from : Second half-year 2026 (2026-07-01)
Level
Third cycle
Subject
Biology
Grading Scale
The grade requirements within the course grading system are set out in specific criteria. These criteria must be available by the course start at the latest.
Course language
English
Entry Requirements
Objectives
After completing the course, the student is expected to be able to:
• Enumerate at least three biological aspects of plant defense.
• Compare and contrast the natural system with the cultivated system, including systems for primary production with regards to plant defense and how agricultural practices shape the interactions between plants and pests/pathogens.
• Describe the ecology and biology of common pests and/or pathogens.
• Relate molecular mechanisms of host and pest/pathogen interactions to pest/pathogen management methods and strategies.
• Apply knowledge of pest/pathogen management methods and strategies to evaluate research result from case studies and the scientific literature.
• Select a plant-pathogen/pest system relevant to primary production and formulate a plant protection strategy based on the latest results and trends within plant protection as part of the project-based learning case scenarios, and use them to evaluate their own research in a broader perspective.
• Give an overview of recent and projected future trends in legislation in Europe that affect plant protection.
• Discuss possible future adaptations of existing plant protection strategies in response to emerging regulatory and environmental challenges and analyse the possible consequences of these adaptations.
Content
The aim of the course is to bring together PhD and MSc students from different backgrounds (biology, agronomy, horticulture, agroecology etc.) working on plant health-related areas and set them in relation to aspects of policy governing their field of study.
To account for the expected diversity of student backgrounds and to make sure that they are on a comparable scientific level in the management strategy discussions, the course will begin with lectures introducing the fundamental aspects of plant health. The lecturers will be asked to give a brief basic introduction to the subject area before moving on to recent research developments, with an emphasis on international perspectives and relevance for primary production systems. The materials for the literature seminar will also be selected to give examples of recent research from an international perspective, including applications within primary production.
The course will cover the following topics:
• Plant defense, resistance biology and breeding.
• Pests and pathogens.
• Ecology/population dynamics, life cycle etc. - some typical examples from each group.
• Crop loss assessment and presentation of different management methods,
e.g. biological and chemical control, resistance breeding, molecular tools, disease prediction, etc.
• Development of sustainable management strategies based on the different methods that are at hand - examples from different cropping systems - agriculture, horticulture and forestry.
• How the threats from pathogens and pests can be expected to be affected by climate change. How are different protection strategies affected by and can be adapted to climate change?
• How changes in pathogens and the environment (resistance development, climate change), in combination with changing regulations (restrictions on pesticide use, legislation on transgenic plants), will impact plant health and plant protection in the future.
• How current and future developments influence the research field of plant health. Applied examples will illustrate how changes in regulations have affected plant health strategies, and students will reflect on the potential positive or negative impacts on their own case studies.
Examination Formats and Requirements for Passing the Course
The marking scale will be pass/failed. The criteria for attaining the different grades will be:<br> 1\. Attendance during course lectures<br> 2\. Participation in group work and oral presentations assigned in the course.<br> 3\. Submission of questions and topics of discussion for each literature seminar, based on the lectures and the assigned readings.<br> 4\. Oral and written report of the project-based learning case study presenting a pest/pathogen management strategy for a cultivation system or global pest/pathogen problem and how changes in legislation can benefit or challenge this strategy.<br> Current information on assessment criteria shall be made available at the start of the course.
Responsible Department/Equivalent
Department of Plant Protection Biology
Supplementary information
Other Information
This recurring course has been offered every other year for many years. It is primarily designed for early-stage doctoral students but is also open to MSc students. Over the years, it has been held in various locations: in Addis Ababa (2014), Alnarp (2016 and 2018), and remotely from Alnarp in 2020, when the planned on-site course at the Universitå degli Studi della Tuscia field station in Pieve Tesino, Trentino, Italy, had to be moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the course returned to an in-person format in Alnarp, and in 2024 it was finally held on site in Pieve Tesino as originally intended. For 2026, we are planning to return to Alnarp. The course is also supported by ELLS funds for incentives.
2026: An excursion is planned to southern Sweden. More information will be provided at the start of the course.