Teaching weed management at the Escola Superior Agrária de Beja

Abstract

The teaching of the discipline Weed Management in Portugal is currently restricted to just three higher education institutions: Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Escola Superior Agrária de Viseu and Escola Superior Agrária de Beja. In the 1986/87 academic year, the Agricultural Production course was taught for the first time at the Escola Superior Agrária de Beja (ESA). The curriculum for this course included the discipline weed control. This discipline was coordinated by Amélia Vitória de Melo Frazão. The inclusion of a discipline in weed management was an important milestone for this area of knowledge, as at the time it was the only Bachelor's degree course to include a discipline in this area. In the 1995/96 academic year, ESA began to offer courses called Technical Engineering. The discipline weed control was continued in the Technical Production Engineering course. In the 2001/02 academic year, the discipline was renamed to Weed Management and was taught in the Agricultural Engineering - Irrigation course. In the following academic year (2002/03), a two-year course called "Management of Agricultural and Environmental Systems" was introduced. Weed Management continues to be taught in this new curriculum. Four academic years later (2006/07), the Master's Degree in Integrated Production began, with the Curricular Unit (CU) of Weed Management forming part of the curriculum. This course was renamed to Master's in Agronomy in the 2010/11 academic year, with the CU remaining on the curriculum. The course and CU are still running today.