A pioneering course in sustainable horticulture is being launched next September by Plymouth University in conjunction with the Eden Project, in Cornwall. The groundbreaking MSc course will include novel approaches to irrigation and pest and disease control.

Students will spend time at the Eden Project learning about the new sustainable techniques developed there. The programme includes the principles and practices of horticulture, research skills, contemporary horticultural issues, and plant science and sustainability.

Dr Stuart Lane, senior lecturer in plant sciences, says the course reflects the growing global awareness of the need for sustainable horticulture. It is one of a handful of advanced horticultural courses in the United Kingdom.

At Reading University students can opt for MScs in wildlife management and conservation, plant diversity, medical plant diversity, conservation and production, or horticulture.

The latter, which can be studied full-time for one year or part-time for up to three years, includes learning about crop production and protection. Professor Paul Hadley, director of the university’s Centre for Horticulture and Landscape, says: “The industry needs far more trained horticulturists. Demand is much greater than the supply. The need is being met by people trained abroad. Horticulture in schools is seen as not being particularly glamorous.”

The School of Horticulture at Writtle College, Chelmsford, offers MSc degrees in international horticulture, crop production and postharvest technology. Degrees are awarded by Essex University. The international horticulture MSc, which is delivered in the UK and the Netherlands, focuses on advanced techniques for the production and postharvest handling of horticultural and tropical crops. Students spend September to December at Writtle and January to April at the HAS Den Bosch University, in the Netherlands. The final three months are spent at one or other of the two institutions.

This year Writtle students won a silver-gilt Lindley award at Chelsea Flower Show for their traditional Essex flower garden adapted to cope with climate change.

At Warwick University students can opt for an MSc degree in enterprise in horticulture or in plant bioscience for crop production. The former prepares students for careers involved with the growing, supplying and marketing of fresh produce. Its core taught modules include supply-chain management, disease control, and soil, water and mineral nutrition.

From next October the university will also offer an MSc in environmental bioscience in a changing climate and another in modelling biological populations and interactions.

“We need well-qualified graduates to become charge hands and business leaders,” says Professor Richard Napier, leader of the MSc enterprise in horticulture course. “Horticulture is a very technologically advanced sector of agriculture. It is a market-led and responsive sector of food production.”

Students can also study for the Royal Horticultural Society’s highly regarded master of horticulture qualification at Hadlow College, Kent – a three-year, part-time evening course. Students should possess the RHS diploma and at least three years’ experience in the horticultural industry.

Degree proved pick of the crop

Terry Karapatzak, from Thessaloniki, northern Greece, is studying for a PhD in horticulture at Reading University after completing an MSc in the subject there.

Karapatzak, 27, had previously taken a BSc in horticulture in Thessaloniki but there were no opportunities to study horticulture at such an advanced level in Greece at the time so he enrolled at Reading.

He says: “The MSc exceeded my expectations. I did not expect it to be so advanced. It was very good value for money.”

The course consists of five to six core modules such as principles of horticulture, greenhouse technology, soft fruit production, statistics and business management. By electing to take extra specialist modules, however, students follow one of three strands – crop production, crop protection or amenity horticulture.

Karapatzak chose crop protection and studied plant pathology, crop and insect pests, tissue culture and molecular plant pathology. The 12-month course also involved a dissertation. He chose to study the genetics of fungi on ornamental plants.

He was awarded a first and is doing his PhD in the technology and physiology of soft fruit. When he has completed it he wants to become an academic.