Instructor: Dr. Richard L. Harkess

Office#: 142-A Dorman Hall

Phone#: 325-4556

E-mail: harkessr@ra.msstate.edu

Course Meeting Time and Place:

Lecture: Monday and Wednesday 11:00 - 11:50 Greenhouse, Room 104

Laboratory: Friday 11:00 - 12:50 Greenhouse, Room 104

Required Text: Nursery Management: Administration and Culture. 4th edition. H. Davidson, C. Peterson, and R. Mecklenburg. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

This syllabus, related course information, and announcements can be found on the internet at the following location: http://www2.msstate.edu/~harkessr/pss4363.html

Course Description and Objectives: The objective of this course is for the student to leave with a good understanding of business and production practices in an ornamental nursery operation. This course will cover production principles and practices and strategies for wholesale and retail marketing of nursery crops. The laboratory will concentrate on the development of skills associated with the production and marketing of nursery crops.

Grading:                                   Points          

                                                 PSS4363         PSS6363         Base grade scale

Midterm I -                              100                  100                  92% = A

Midterm II -                             100                  100                  82% = B

Final Exam -                            100                  100                  70% = C

Laboratory assignments -       100                  100                  60% = D

Lab Oral Presentation -          30                    30                    59%↓ = F

Lab Written Report -              70                    70

Participation -                          50                    50

Term Report -                          N/A                 100  

Term Report Presentation -   N/A                 50

Total Points -                            550                  700

All exams will be comprehensive!

Attendance: Regular attendance and participation is expected and necessary to obtain the full benefit of this course. Roll will not be taken, however, the individual student is responsible for their attendance of course lectures and labs.

The use of all tobacco products is prohibited in the classroom, the greenhouse, and during labs.

Turn off all cell phones during class and lab periods. Use of cell phones is prohibited during class and laboratory periods.

There is a zero tolerance policy for plagiarism and academic misconduct as defined in the student handbook and on the University web site.

Missed exams and lab projects: Students will be given a zero on an exam or project that has been missed without a legitimate excuse, preferably given in advance.

Missed Labs: and absences should be approved IN ADVANCE where circumstances permit. There will be no make up for laboratory exercises that have been missed without notice. Due to the nature of some of the labs (i.e. group projects, field trips, in class projects, ...), there will be no make up available for these labs if missed.

Lab Assignments and Project: Lab assignments will be handed out during laboratory sessions and a due date will be announced at that time. Some of the lab assignments will be due at the end of the class period. Each student will also be responsible for completing a lab project based on a production practice which will be presented as a 12 minute oral presentation (10 minutes speaking and 2 minutes for questions) to the class at the end of the term. A written report will also be required for this project.

Lab Project: Students will be responsible for conducting a small scale experiment project relevant to nursery production or business operations. This project will be the basis for your lab project oral presentation at the end of the semester. A written report will also be required for this project. You must supply the instructor with a written outline of the proposed project no later than January 30th.

Lab Project Oral and Written Report: All students will be responsible for a 12 minute oral presentation and an written laboratory report on their experiment project. The laboratory notebook should be turned in with your written report. The written report should typed in 12 pt font with 1" margins. The report should be written in scientific journal format (see any article in HortScience for the general content and format) and be of sufficient length to include the following: a literature review including basic information about the plant material used and the problem addressed; materials and methods including enough information that a student wishing to repeat your project could do the same experiment; results and discussion explaining what happened and why you think your results are valid. You may include graphs, tables, and/or figures in your data presentation. Properly cite all literature used and include a literature cited section listing all the literature you used to support your literature review and discussion of experimental results.

Term Report: (Students enrolled in PSS6363 i.e. Graduate Students Only) The term report is a report on a nursery crop in written format. The major objectives of the report are to become adept at seeking out all appropriate information on a specific nursery (woody plant) crop, to identify and use both traditional and non-traditional sources of information, to become exceptionally knowledgeable of a specific crop, and to effectively communicate this new-found knowledge in written form.

Term Report Presentations: Students enrolled in PSS6363 (graduate students) will be required to prepare and present a 20 minute oral presentation/lecture based on their term report. These are expected to be informative and professional.

            The term report is to be a review of pertinent literature and current cultural information available on the production of the crop. This requires exploration in traditional written literature (books, scientific journals, and trade magazines), non-traditional sources (e.g. culture sheets, personal communication with growers, etc.), and basic science references. The report will, as a result, present the crop on both a commercial and scientific level. A minimum of 6 of your references will be from scientific journals.

            The student should submit a proposal specifying the term report topic with a general content outline to the instructor no later than February 8th, 5:00pm. It should follow the same format guidelines as for the term paper and will count for 5% of the term paper grade.

The time line for the report is:

Term report proposal:             February 8, 5:00pm

Final Report due:                    April 12, 5:00pm

            Students are encouraged to discuss their report/paper with the instructor for several reasons. It is hoped that the best possible reports will be prepared, consultation with the instructor can help to ensure this actually happening, and problems with the deadline will hopefully be minimized.

            There is a maximum length of 12 pages for the report. All reports are expected to be complete and must be typed in a 12pt font double-spaced with one inch margins on all sides. If you do not have access to a good printer, you may submit your paper on disk in WordPerfect, Microsoft Word for Windows, or .pdf format. The file must be PC compatible (DOS or Windows). I cannot print Macintosh files. Final reports are due April 12th by 5:00pm. For each day that a report is late, the report score will be reduced by 5%.

            The literature cited should follow American Society for Horticultural Science guidelines. Some examples follow:

Journal:

Harkess, R.L. and R.E. Lyons. 1993. Anatomical changes in Rudbeckia hirta L. during transition to flowering. J. Amer. Soc. Hort. Sci. 118:835-839.

Book:

Martin, L.C. 1986. The wildflower meadow book. Fast and McMillan Publishers, Charlotte, N.C.

Book Section or Chapter:

Key, J.L., Kimpel, J., Vierling, E., Lin, C., Nagao, R.T., Czarnecka, E., and Sch"ffl, F. 1985. Physiological and molecular analysis of the heat shock response in plants. In: Changes in eukaryotic gene expression in response to environmental stress (Atkinson, B.G. and Walden, D.B. eds.) Academic Press, New York, NY, pp. 237-348.

Participation: Points will be awarded based on the students participation in course activities. This includes participation in the Horticulture Club Spring Plant Sale.

Important Dates for PSS4363/6363 Spring 2006

W January 18 - Classes Begin

F January 20 - First Lab

F January 27 - Potting plants for experiments

M January 30 - lab project proposal due

F February 3 - No class (SR-ASHS)

M February 6 - No class (SR-ASHS)

W February 8 - Graduate Student’s Term report proposal due by 5:00pm.

W February 22 - Midterm Exam I

M March 13 - No Class (Spring Break)

W March 15 - No Class (Spring Break)

F March 17 - No Class (Spring Break)

W March 29 - Midterm Exam II

W April 12 - Term Report Due by 5:00pm.

F April 14 - No Class (Spring Holiday)

F April 21 - Hort Club Plant Sale

M April 24 - Lab project presentations

W April 26 - Lab project presentations

F April 28 - Lab project presentations

M May 1 - Lab project presentations

W May 3 - Graduate Student presentations

T May 9 - FINAL EXAM (12:00-3:00am Tuesday May 9, 2006)

Student Name and Crop:

Introduction to problem/literature review__________/10

Description of materials and methods__________/10

Explanation and presentation of results __________/10

Discussion/significance of results__________/10

            Notebook                                                                                                       ___________/5

            Point of Purchase sign                                                                                   ___________/5

            Reference sources and proper citation                                                           ___________/5

            Grammar, spelling, neatness, readability, organization                                 ___________/5

            Demonstrated understanding and care of your crop and experiment            __________/10

Total points:                                                                                            __________/70

Comments:

Student Name and Crop:

Introduction to problem__________/7

Explanation of methods__________/7

Presentation and explanation of results __________/7

Significance of results___________/3

Presentation professionalism, appearance and organization ___________/5

Total points:                                                                                                             __________/30

Comments:

PSS 6363 Nursery Management

Term Paper grading sheet

Student Name:____________________________________

Proposal                                                                                                                     ___________/5

Introduction

            Crop and species background, history                                                           ___________/5

            Botanical, taxonomic, and morphological information                                 ___________/5

Cultural practices                                                                                                      __________/15

Environmental factors affecting production                                                              __________/10

Growth Regulators                                                                                                    ___________/5

Pest Management                                                                                                      __________/10

Other Production Problems                                                                                       ___________/5

Crop Scheduling and Estimated Production Costs                                                    __________/15

Other/miscellaneous effects                                                                                      ___________/5

Literature cited, sources of information, proper citation                                           __________/10

Miscellaneous

            Grammar, spelling, neatness, readability, organization                                 ___________/5

            Demonstrated understanding of crop and assignment                                   ___________/5

Total points:                                                                                                            __________/100

Comments:

PSS 6363 Nursery Management

Term Paper Oral Report grading sheet

Student Name:

Presentation 

            Presentation Organization                                                                               __________/4

Introduction __________/6

Production techniques_________/10

Production problems_________/10

Summary__________/5

Quality and use of visual aides or classroom space __________/4

Handling questions, Clarification of points__________/6

Appearance, Presentation professionalism__________/5

Total points:                                                                                                             __________/50

Comments:

PSS4363/6363 NURSERY MANAGEMENT Laboratory

 LABORATORY COURSE SYLLABUS Spring Semester, 2006

Laboratory Description and Objectives: Laboratory exercises will consist of projects concentrating on the development of skills associated with working in a nursery and the production and marketing of nursery crops.

Missed lab projects: Students will be given a zero on a project that has been missed without a legitimate excuse. Missed Labs and absences should be approved IN ADVANCE where circumstances permit. There will be no make up for laboratory exercises that have been missed without notice or legitimate excuse. Due to the nature of some of the labs (i.e. group projects, field trips, in class projects, ...), there will be no makeup available for these labs.

Important Dates for PSS4363/6363 Laboratory Spring 2006

F January 20 - First Lab and lab project proposal due

F January 27 - Potting plants for experiments

F February 3 - No class (SR-ASHS)

F March 17 - No Class (Spring Break)

F April 14 - No Class (Spring Holiday)

F April 21 - Hort Club Plant Sale

M April 24 - Lab project presentations

W April 26 - Lab project presentations

F April 28 - Lab project presentations

M May 1 - Lab project presentations

W May 3 - Graduate Student presentations

T May 9 - FINAL EXAM (12:00-3:00am Tuesday May 9, 2006)

Lab Assignments: Lab assignments will be handed out during laboratory sessions and a due date will be announced at that time. Some of the lab assignments will be due at the end of the class period.

Lab Project: Each student will be responsible for completing a small scale experiment project relevant to nursery production. Students will be required to present a 12 minute oral presentation (10 minutes speaking and 2 minutes for questions) to the class at the end of the term. This presentation will be based on your lab project. A written report will also be required for this project. You must supply the instructor with a written outline of the proposed project no later than January 30^th.

The plants you are growing will be sold at the Horticulture Club Spring plant sale currently scheduled for April 21^st and 22^nd. Part of the project will be to create a “point of purchase” sign to be placed next to the plants. This sign should include information about the plant, a picture, and cultural information. Please turn in a copy of your sign with your lab report. Part of your grade will be based on how well your crop turns out. You will be allowed to take home up to 6 of your finished plants. In addition, you will be required to participate in the plant sale during normal lab hours (11:00 to 12:50) or at another time during the sale as arranged with the instructor. This requirement is intended to provide you with some retail experience. Active participation in all aspects of the sale from stocking plants to assisting customers is expected.

Lab Project Oral and Written Report: All students will be responsible for a 12 minute oral presentation and an written laboratory report on their experiment project. The laboratory notebook should be turned in with your written report. The written report should typed in 12 pt font with 1" margins. The report should be written in scientific journal format (see any article in HortScience for the general content and format) and be of sufficient length to include the following: a literature review including basic information about the plant material used and the problem addressed; materials and methods including enough information that a student wishing to repeat your project could do the same experiment; results and discussion explaining what happened and why you think your results are valid. All data should be summarized e.g. averages with standard deviations. You should include graphs, tables, and/or figures in your data presentation. Properly cite all literature used and include a literature cited section listing all the literature you used to support your literature review and discussion of experimental results.

Notebook: As part of the laboratory project a notebook must be kept detailing your activities working on your project. Each entry must be dated with the date the activity took place. All pages must be numbered consecutively with no blank pages. The resulting notebook should contain all the appropriate information for a person unfamiliar with your project to be able to repeat your project exactly as you have done. If your crop requires treatment with a chemical for growth control or pest control, the chemical, concentration, date of application, and person making the application should be recorded. This notebook is to be turned in with your laboratory report.

Anticipated available plant material (about 36 plants/student):