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Department of Plant Sciences
University of Colombo
P.O.Box 1490, Colombo 03
Sri Lanka

 Phone : +94(0)11 2585038
 Fax : +94(0)11 2503148
 Email: office@pts.cmb.ac.lk

• BT 3001: PLANT PATHOLOGY (30L/30P, 3C)

• BT 3002: HORTICULTURE (30L/30P, 3C)

• BT 3003: PLANT MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (30L, 2C)

• BT 3005: ADVANCED MICROBIOLOGY (30L/30P, 3C)

• BT 3006: PLANT TISSUE CULTURE TECHNOLOGY (30L/30P, 3C)

• BT 3066: PLANT SYSTEMATICS (30L/30P, 3C)

Dependencies: BT 1005 is recommended.

Syllabus: Introduction: Concept of disease, history of plant pathology, significance of plant diseases, symptoms and types of diseases, effect of human society on plant diseases; Procedures in Diagnosis of Plant Diseases: Infectious and non-infectious diseases, Kochs’ rules; Causative Agents of Plant Diseases: Fungi, Bacteria, Mollicutes, Viruses and Viroids, Nematodes; Parasitism and Disease Development: Parasitism and pathogenecity, host range of pathogens, disease triangle, diseases cycle / infection cycle, relationship between disease cycles & epidemics; How Pathogens Attack Plants: Mechanical forces, microbial enzymes and toxins, growth regulators; Effect on Physiology of Host: Photosynthesis, translocation and transpiration, respiration, permeability, transcription and translation; Defense Mechanisms of Plants: Pre-existing structural and chemical defenses, induced structural and biochemical defenses; Genetics of Plant Diseases: Genes and disease, types of resistance, development of resistant varieties; Environment and Plant Disease: Effect of temperature, moisture, wind, light, soil pH and structure, nutrition, herbicides; Plant Disease Epidemiology: Elements of an epidemic, development and patterns of epidemics, mathematical description, comparison of epidemics, forecasting and simulation of epidemics; Control of Plant Diseases: Exclusion, eradication, immunization & developing resistance, direct protection, integrated control; Plant Pathology in Practice: Study of a few common diseases of crop plants, plant pathogens as biological weapons.

 Assessment: End of semester theory examination and practical examination.

 Suggested Reading: Plant Pathology (Agrios, G.N.) 1997.

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Dependencies: BT 1007 is recommended.

Syllabus: The Impact of Horticulture: Brief history, horticultural classification, horticultural crops, economic importance; Essentials of Nursery Management: Soil management - garden soil, physical and chemical properties of soil, organic matter, compost, maintenance of soil condition; cultural practices; water management- water quality, irrigation, mulching, nursery structures- protected cultivation (greenhouses), environment controls, pest and disease control; Hydroponic culture; Growing media and Media Mixes : Loam – based and non-loam based media, heat and chemical treatment of growing media, container-growing; Use of manures and fertilizers in horticultural Crop Production; Organic Farming; Environment Factors in vegetable and fruit growing: Climatic factors, water supply, selection of site; Growth control in horticultural crops: Physical control- pruning and training; biological control- graft combination; chemical control- use of plant growth substances; Plant propagation; Plant improvement; Commercial Horticulture: horticultural production systems, orcharding, vegetable farming, floriculture; Ornamental gardening; Landscape horticulture; Amenity horticulture; Post harvest technology of horticultural crops: Market preparation of fruits and vegetables- harvesting and handling, grading, curing / drying, chemical treatment, radiation treatment, pre-cooling, packaging, transportation, refrigeration, cold storage, cold chain, controlled and modified atmosphere storage; Food processing: Blanching, freezing, bottling and canning, preserves.

Assessment: End of semester theory examination and practical examination.

Suggested Reading: Horticulture (Mathew, L.P. and Karikari, S.K.) 1994; Horticultural Science (Janick, J.) 1986; Horticulture (Prakash, J. and Peirik, B.L.M. eds.) 1991; Hydroponics (Jones, J. B.) 1997; Nature and Properties of Soil (Brady, N.) 1999; Journals: Journal of Horticultural Science, Journal of American Society of Horticultural Science, Crop Science, Horticulturist, Hortscience, Indian Horticulture.

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Dependencies: BT 2006 is recommended.

Syllabus: Basics of Plant Molecular Biology; Organization of Nuclear Genes: Nucleus and chromatin organization, DNA packaging; Organization and types of DNA sequences: Functional and non functional sequences; Chloroplast and mitochondrial genomes; Molecular basis of DNA markers and their applications; Molecular marker maps, mapping; Molecular biotechnology.

Assessment: End of semester theory examination.

Suggested Reading: Plant Molecular Biology (Grierson, D. and Covey, S.N.) 1998; Molecular Cell Biology (Lodish, H. Berck, A., Zipursky, S.L., Matsudaira, P., Baltimore, D. and Darnell, J.) 2000, 4 th ed.; Recombinant DNA (Watson, J.D., Gilman, M., Witkowski, J., Zoller, M.) 1992.

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Dependencies: BT 2003 is recommended.

Syllabus: Microorganisms and safety: Harmless microorganisms and assumptions, GILSP and GOSH practices in industry, Handling of clinical samples, spills and contaminated items, aerosols, assessing autoclave function, sterilization with radiation, biosafety cabinets, ultra centrifuges; Bio-safety and containment for risk type microorganisms: Risk categories for different value systems, laboratory types for different bio-safety/ containment levels and equipment, facility design, physical and biological containment, handling of genetically manipulated microorganisms and plant pathogens, disposal and decontamination; Environmental applications: Wastewater microbial treatments, composting and solid waste treatment, biogas, sludge from fermentation as fertilizer, live microbial cultures for fertility increase, bioformulations, eutrophication control, biodeterioration control, biomining and geological applications; Microorganisms and agri-production: Microbial inocula, biopesticides, dinitrogen fixation, introduction to organic agriculture, organic matter as food for soil microorganisms, virus detection, bacteria and virus elimination in tissue cultured plants; Soil biological quality and crop growth: Soil components, soil organic matter and humus, mineralization and immobilization, priming effect, rhizosphere and phyllosphere, plant-microbe interactions, symbiotic associations, soil fertility and soil degradation; Food technology and Microbial aspects: Microbial food spoilage and improvement, preservation and storage, aflatoxins, sanitation in food industry, value addition, testing of food for microbial pathogens, food related microbial pathogens; Microorganisms in industry: Industrial hygiene, yeast technology, microbial biomass as food, milk products, alcoholic beverages, production of Rhizobial inocula, use of GM microrganisms in industry, regulatory issues on import/ export of microbial cultures, current status of applications in Sri Lanka.

Assessment: End of semester theory examination and practical examination.

Suggested Reading: Principles of Microbiology (Atlas, R. M.) 2 nd ed.; Foundations in Microbiology (Talaro & Talaro) 1996; General Microbiology (Schlegal, H. G.) 6 th ed.

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Dependencies: BT 2007 is recommended.

Syllabus: Introduction: Definition and technologies, Plant cell & tissue culture technologies: A brief description, technology and potential application of organ and meristem culture, anther/pollen culture, callus, suspension cultures and protoplast culture; Plant propagation and somatic embryogenesis: Plant regeneration through meristem, callus cultures and somatic embryogensis, production, preservation and use of somatic embryos as propagules; Artificial seeds and automation of somatic embryo production: Principles, technology of automation and the application; Embryo culture; Haploid plant production; Cryopreservation: Storage of germplasm; Protoplast culture; Somatic hybridization, Induction & utilization of somatic variants; Secondary metabolite production through cell cultures: Principles and the technology, pharmaceutical, pigments & beverage production; Commercialization of tissue culture technology: Concept of commercialization and the need, design of a tissue culture laboratory and its management.

Assessment: End of semester theory examination and practical examination.

Suggested Reading : Experiments in Plant Tissue Culture (JH Dodds & LW Roberts) 1985; Plant Tissue Culture methods & application in agriculture (TA Thorpe) 1981; Journal of Plant Cell & Tissue Culture; Plant Cell, Tissue & Organ Culture; Journal of Biotechnology;

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Dependencies: BT 1001

Syllabus: Science of Systematics: Taxonomy, phylogeny, and the process of evolution, the importance of plant systematics in society and the relevance to biology; Historical background: Summary of the history of classification from pre-Linnaean to contemporary taxonomic philosophies; Different approaches and principals in biological classification: Artificial, natural phyletic, phenetics, cladistics and the phylogenetic approach, Concepts of characters, character states, homology, evolutionary trees and taxonomic hierarchy; Botanical nomenclature: ICBN and Phylocode system; Taxonomic data: Morphological data (floral and foliar), anatomical, embryological, palynological, cytogenetics, phytochemistry, reproductive biology and ecological data in plant systematics; Introduction to plant molecular systematics: Different methods and molecular markers in plant systematics, Analysis of molecular data, Concepts of gene trees, speies tress, homoplasy, monophyly, paraphyly and molecular evolution, Practical aspects of molecular systematics; Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) classifcation of flowering plants: Major clades in APG system, basal clades, monocots, Eudicots, core Eudicots, Rosids and Asterids; Sources of plant systematics: Systematic literature, herbaria, botanical gardens , electronic data bases.

Assessment: End of semester theory examination and practical and/or assignments.

Suggested Reading: Plant Taxonomy (Stuessy, T.F.) 1990; Plant Systematics – A Phylogenetic Approach 2 nd edition (Judd, W. S., Campbell, C. S., Kellogg E. A. and Stevens, P. F.) 2002, 2 nd edition; An Integrated System of Classification of Flowering Palnts (Cronquist, A.) 1981. Plant Taxonomy and Biosystematics (Stace,C. A. ) 1989, 2 nd edition.

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