Sep 6, 2018

Online Disease Management Course to Begin in October

The University of Florida has received a new education grant from the American Floral Endowment that will help improve Spanish language access to the university’s online grower courses — including the Disease Management course that will debut this fall.

The four-week courses in English and Spanish are designed for growers or technical managers in the U.S. and other countries. To date, more than 1,000 growers have completed the courses.

In October, the university will be offering a Disease Management Course. The course runs from Oct. 1 to 26, 2018. It will be taught by Carrie Harmon. The cost is $199 per participant, and includes a personalized certificate of completion. Over 4 weeks, there are streaming video lessons, readings and assignments (about 2-3 hours total commitment per week), which can be accessed at any time of day.

After completing this course participants will be able to:

• Prevent diseases by learning how diseases develop and spread;
• Learn how to differentiate between disease and other issues;
• Understand basic organic and conventional management options for greenhouse and nursery situations; and
• Safely apply and handle fungicides and understand rules and regulations

The education grant from AFE will help cover the cost of translating course materials into Spanish.

Lack of trained staff is recognized by growers as the number one issue they face. Training is an investment by businesses in their employees who are already performing well, have proven their work ethic, and just need opportunities to advance their growing careers. The AFE grant will also help measure the return on this investment, where UF instructors will quantify the impacts of learning in terms of knowledge, behavior and economic value.

Click here to register for the Disease Management course.

For more information, go to http://hort.ifas.ufl.edu/training/, or email greenhousetraining@ifas.ufl.edu.