MSc Sustainable Crop Production: Agronomy for the 21st Century pre-reading list
This is a selection of reading material recommended by module leaders for those who would like to get ahead with their study before beginning their course. Module leaders have chosen resources which are freely available and can be used as a starting point to give you a brief introduction to some of the ideas in their modules.
You are not required to purchase textbooks or to read these suggestions before you begin the course. Many e-books and journals will be available to you online through Warwick Library once you enrol. Each module has its own reading list on its Moodle page.
You may also be interested in Academic Writing: A guide for pre-induction students, a Moodle guide provided by the Academic Writing Programme.
Core Modules
HR901 Advances in Crop Protection
- Strange, R.N. and Scott, P.R., 2005. Plant disease: a threat to global food security. Annual Review of Phytopathology 43
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.phyto.43.113004.133839 - Barzman, M., Bàrberi, P., Birch, A.N.E., Boonekamp, P., Dachbrodt-Saaydeh, S., Graf, B., Hommel, B., Jensen, J.E., Kiss, J., Kudsk, P. and Lamichhane, J.R., 2015. Eight principles of integrated pest management. Agronomy for sustainable development, 35(4), pp.1199-1215.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13593-015-0327-9
HR902 Soil sustainability and the environment
- Sanderman, J et al. (2017) Soil carbon debt of 12,000 years of human land use. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114, 9575-9580
https://www.pnas.org/content/114/36/9575 - Gregory, AS et al (2015) A review of the impacts of degradation threats on soil properties in the UK. Soil Use and Management 31, 1-15.
https://bsssjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/sum.12212 - van der Heijden, MGA et al (2008) The unseen majority: soil microbes as drivers of plant diversity and productivity in terrestrial ecosystems. Ecology Letters 11, 296-310.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2007.01139.x
HR922 Organic and Low Input Systems
- Agricology web site https://www.agricology.co.uk/
- Soil Association https://www.soilassociation.org/
- The 10 Elements of Agroecology Guiding the Transition to Sustainable Food and Agricultural Systems FAO https://www.fao.org/3/i9037en/i9037en.pdf
- IFOAM - Organics International https://www.ifoam.bio/
- Agroforestry USDA https://www.usda.gov/topics/forestry/agroforestry
- Agroforestry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63VYutmrRvY
- Silvopasture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mINkkGVkc7Q
- Organic Cereal and Pulse Production: A Complete Guide. Stephen Briggs.
- Rebels for the Soil: The Rise of the Global Organic Food and Farming. Matthew Reed.
- Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm. Isabella Tree.
HR931 Plant Breeding and Trial Design for Registration
- Ahmar et al (2020) Conventional and Molecular Techniques from Simple Breeding to Speed Breeding in Crop Plants: Recent Advances and Future Outlook. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, volume 21, 2590
(doi:10.3390/ijms21072590 - https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/21/7/2590) - Tadesse et al (2019) Review: Genetic Gains in Wheat Breeding and Its Role in Feeding the World. Crop Breeding, Genetics and Genomics, 1:e190005
(https://doi.org/10.20900/cbgg20190005) - Voss-Fels et al (2019) BMC Biol0gy, Q&A Modern breeding and food security. Volume 17:18
(https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-019-0638-4 - https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-019-0638-4)
HR929 Cereal, Oilseed and Root Crop Agronomy
- Book – Any on agronomy of UK arable crops
- Website – AHDB Cereals and Oilseeds - https://ahdb.org.uk/cereals-oilseeds
- Trade press – Crop Production Magazine / Farmer’s Weekly
HR930 Introduction to BASIS Crop Protection
- Book – Any on agronomy of UK arable crops
- Website – AHDB Cereals and Oilseeds - https://ahdb.org.uk/cereals-oilseeds
- Website – UK agronomy companies, e.g. Agrii, Hutchinsons, Agrovista
- Trade press – Crop Production Magazine / Farmer’s Weekly
Optional Modules
HR923 Biological Invasions in Changing Environments
- Invasive Species 101 - National Geographic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYNAtw1c7hI - Hulme, P.E., 2009. Trade, transport and trouble: managing invasive species pathways in an era of globalization. Journal of Applied Ecology 46, 10-18.
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2008.01600.x - Roy, H.E., Bacon, J., Beckmann, B., Harrower, C.A., Hill, M.O., Isaac, N.J., Preston, C.D., Rathod, B., Rorke, S.L., Marchant, J.H. and Musgrove, A., 2012. Non-Native Species in Great Britain: establishment, detection and reporting to inform effective decision making. Defra, London.
https://www.ceh.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2012_-_NNSIP_Final_report.pdf
HR924 Biodiversity, Conservation and Ecosystem Services
- Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations);
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/ - Millenium Ecosystem Assessment.
https://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.html
HR926 Microbiomics and Metagenomics
- Berg et al (2020) Microbiome definition re-visited: old concepts and new challenges. Microbiome 8:103.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-020-00875-0 https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-020-00875-0 - National Research Council (US) Committee on Metagenomics: Challenges and Functional Applications (2007) The New Science of Metagenomics: Revealing the Secrets of Our Microbial Planet. National Academies Press (US); Washington (DC);
Available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK54011/ [last accessed 13 July 2020] - Escobar-Zepeda et al. (2015) The Road to Metagenomics: From Microbiology to DNA Sequencing Technologies and Bioinformatics. Frontiers in Genetics. 15 (6), 348.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2015.00348
LF912 Business Strategy
- Collis, David J., and Michael G. Rukstad. "Can You Say What Your Strategy Is?." Harvard Business Review (2008): 1.
https://www.panelquest.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/HBR-Can-you-say-what-strategy-is.pdf - Denney, E. (2019). The Yin and Yang of Business Strategy. Irish Business Journal, 12(1), 4.
https://sword.cit.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=irishbusinessjournal - PISANO, GARY P. "YOU NEED AN INNOVATION STRATEGY." Harvard Business Review (2015).
HR933 Challenges of Global Food Security
- Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31788-4/fulltext - The state of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020
https://www.fao.org/publications/home/fao-flagship-publications/the-state-of-food-security-and-nutrition-in-the-world/2020/en - An Introduction to the Basic Concepts of Food Security
https://www.fao.org/3/al936e/al936e00.pdf - Food Ethics Council
https://www.foodethicscouncil.org/ - Feeding Britain: Our Food Problems and How to Fix Them. Tim Lang.
- Sitopia: How Food Can Save the World. Carolyn Steel.