Irrigation and Farm Management (AGR 455) – 4.5 Credit
Content: (i) Theory- Irrigation: definition and background; importance of irrigation; soil physical properties in relation to irrigation practices; irrigation water requirement; time of application of irrigation; conveyance, distribution and field application systems; methods of irrigation, their advantages and disadvantages; measurement of irrigation water loss; present status of irrigation in Bangladesh; common problems in irrigated agriculture and their remedies; drainage of agricultural lands; Farm management: concept and definition; principles of farm management; consideration for establishment of a farm; farm types, structure and farm layout; crop planning, cropping systems, crop rotation, farming systems; Farm budgeting and Farm planning: partial and enterprise budgets, farm budgeting; resource inventory and management of resources; farm efficiency measures and enterprise diversification; Financial management: record keeping, balance sheet and cashbook; risk management; personnel management. (ii) Practical: Identification and use of irrigation machinery; determination of irrigation water requirement; farm layout preparation; layout of the experimental plot; farm records and their maintenance; Preparation of cropping scheme, crop rotation schedules, crop calendar; crop cutting experiment; economic analysis of an enterprise; visit an agricultural farm and preparation and presentation of the report.
Principles of Crop Production (AGR 501) – 3 Credit
Content: Definition and domain of agronomy; plant and plant kingdom: origin, domestication, and diversity of plants, gene pool system, classification of crops, structural and functional organization of crop plants, the economy of plant forms and functions, development of plant; crop improvement: aerial environment, below ground (root) environment; plant processes: radiation and photosynthesis, soil-plant-water relations; crop yield: determination of crop yields, ecology of crop yield in relation to climate change, physiological aspects of yield improvement of crops, yield increases-trend, limits, and prospects.
Climate Change and Crop Production (AGR 610) – 3 Credit
Content: Scenarios of climate change; global warming: causes and effects on agriculture; climate data for agricultural planning and management; land-use change: threats and opportunities; ecosystem change and management; resource management and programs to mitigate the risk of crop production associated with climate change; crop development: agronomic options and genetic adaptation of crops to drought, salinity, excess moisture/flooding, temperature, etc. climate resilience cropping systems for the climatically vulnerable area of Bangladesh; climate change research strategies.
AGM 515: Principles of Agrometeorology (AGM 515) – 3 Credit
Agricultural meteorology: Concept, scope and components; Agro-climatic classification, agro-climatic zones and agro-ecological regions of Bangladesh; Importance of meteorological parameters in agriculture; Water balance in ecosystems; soil-water balance models and water production functions; Radiation physics; Solar energy conversion into dry matter production; Meteorological factors in photosynthetic processes; Major abiotic stresses affecting agricultural production: concepts, types, causes and prediction; Crop stress detection; Crop weather calendar; Global warming and its effect on crops.
AGM 570: Remote Sensing and GIS in Agricultural Meteorology (AGM 570) – 3 Credit
RS, GIS, and GPS; signals, sensors, and sensing systems; remote sensing in agrometeorology; electromagnetic radiation and interaction with Earth’s special features; imaging and non-imaging systems; framing and scanning systems; resolution of sensors; data acquisition systems, data processing, and storage; radar data analysis, digital image interpretation, crop acreage and yield estimation; crop stress detection; ground water inventory; monitoring crop disease and pest infestation using RS and GIS techniques; soil and land resource inventory, LULC classification and mapping, land evaluation, and crop suitability assessment; watershed development using RS and GIS; crop growth and yield modeling; weather data for modeling, crop production forecasting, use of spectrometer and computation of vegetation indices.