Eight departmental faculty members work off-campus at Agricultural Research and Extension Centers of Virginia Tech located at Blackstone, Painter, Suffolk, Winchester, and Virginia Beach. Graduates of our programs are prepared for careers as professional plant pathologists, plant physiologists, weed scientists, or plant biotechnologists. May be repeated. Student interns will learn to diagnose and make recommendations for control of plant diseases from specimens received by the Plant Disease Clinic, or will learn to identify and make recommendations for control of weeds received by the Weed Clinic. Each of the two options within the course may be taken once for credit.
Students give formal presentations of research results or current literature.
May be taken on pass-fail basis. Students enrolled in the MCBB Ph.D. option will be required to give one formal presentation on an A-F basis. Identification, taxonomy, classification, cytochemistry, anatomy, genetics, plant-pathogen interactions, disease physiology, and control of plant pathogenic prokaryotes. Virus classification, isolation, chemical and structural properties, replication and pathogenicity, symptomatology, identification, ecology, vector dissemination, and control. Molecular biology of host-virus interactions, resistance mechanisms, and genetic engineering for control.