MSU offers Floriculture Root Zone Management online course

The Michigan State University Extension Floriculture program is now offering the first in a series of self-paced online courses. These courses are a repurposing of the original face-to-face College of Knowledge courses that were offered in the 1990s and 2000s. The purpose of these new online courses is to provide basic training to the commercial floriculture growers in Michigan and beyond in the most efficient and lowest cost manner possible.

The first course in the series being offered now is Floriculture Root Zone Management. The objectives of this course are to provide the latest practical information on managing the root zone of container-grown greenhouse crops. It covers the topics of irrigation water, including water sources, water quality, water treatment, and irrigation timing and methodology; growing media, including the physical and chemical properties of media, as well as substrate components and amendments; and nutrition, including how to select fertilizers and how to monitor nutrition.

The course consists of many recorded mini-lectures, self-assessment quizzes and links for further information. In addition, a certificate of completion can be printed off if the student scores higher than 80 percent on the final online exam.

The course is hosted on a national extension website. To register, you must sign up for this course via MSU’s cashiers website. The course is $99. Once you pay for the course, the emailed receipt will include instructions on how to access the course.