Goal
The complexity and whole variety of crops, along with warm and humid conditions, have given rise to great diversity of relevant pests that seriously affect the crop yield and development of agricultural industry in Taiwan. The way to treat these pests from view of point of traditional plant protection that mainly concentrates single subject (i.e. entomologists focus on insect pests only) may not be as comprehensive as previously thought. Due to this given issue, multidiscipline-based "plant medicine" seems to represent a novel and promising alternative to solve most problems derived from old- fashioned "plant protection". The "plant medicine" system not only maximizes the economic benefit in agricultural industry but also provides a great platform highlighting the importance of integrated pest management (IPM).
By its definition, "plant medicine" system combines key aspects from plant protection, plant pathology and entomology fields. Even more, these traditional subjects do not pay much attention on progressive health care of plants and development of effective treatment methods, which, however, has been included as one of the most important tasks in plant medicine system. The term "medicine" has said it all that professionals trained by plant medicine system, namely plant doctors, are literally like MD (Doctor of Medicine) or veterinarians who take cares of injured and sick people or animal as well as medical treatment, health assessment and subsequent nursing attention, with the only difference on target patience, that is plant with agricultural importance. Likewise, the plant doctors are responsible for comprehensive understanding the plant health issues, clinic diagnosis of plant pests, management, treatment, nutritional status of plant, soil/fertilizer and chemicals usage.
Vision
The first master-degreed program ever in Asia, Master Program for Plant Medicine (MSPM), has been launched in 2011 by NTU as an incubator for plant doctors. Additionally, this program also focuses on integrated research on plant pest science to satisfy the public need from the industry, setting the Plant Medicine Law into action, providing integrated plant health service and, eventually, increasing the job opportunity for students graduated from relevant fields. These structure and academia systems of MSPM were instituted with those in DPM University of Florida as reference with some modifications to fit the educational status and requirement in Taiwan. This master-degreed program is designed for students to bring what they have been learning while they were undergraduates in different fields, rendering it as an interconnected platform for plant doctor training in basic and applied senses. The ultimate goal of MSPM is to keep our agricultural system self-sustainable and to develop healthy and stable crop yield that supplies people in this country, especially the whole world is facing food crisis.
The MSPM takes 11 students annually who are under supervision of totally 23 faculty members including three part-time and 20 adjunct professors from related departments in College of Bioresource and Agriculture.
Students have to finish 50 credits before being qualified for graduation. The courses are built to satisfy five principles: 1. Comprehensive interdisciplinary 'core' of courses provides a depth of training across the plant-related disciplines (plant pathology, entomology, plant science, soil science and weed science). 2. Required internships target professional goals of the students and enable the students to integrate their 'core' training to solve problems and address diagnosis and management issues. Internships typically include projects with agribusinesses, crop consulting firms, extension specialists, or state/federal regulatory agencies. 3. Extensive training in diagnostics that emphasizes hands-on learning. 4. Elective courses give the student flexibility to reach individual career goals. 5. Educational opportunities for plant doctors in problem-solving, communication, leadership, policy, conflict resolution, professionalism and ethics.
Trend
Interdisciplinary education with integrated subjects is the future trend of agribusiness, which provides a platform to produce plant doctors with comprehensive interdisciplinary training in all aspects of plant health.
These plant doctors are ready to provide the expertise needed to develop and manage complex crop systems in a way that maximizes their economic and environmental sustainability. The future direction of MSPPM is listed below.
- Strengthening research and education on new technologies for plant health management
- Developing the tree doctor system
- Developing technologies of molecular detection and diagnosis
- Strengthening research and education on clinic plant medicine and pesticide
- Strengthening research and application on epidemiology of plant pests and disease
- Developing organic agriculture and safe usage of pesticide
- Launch the international collaboration and interflow on plant medicine system
- Developing quarantine technologies for imported and exported goods
We believe those broadly trained, interdisciplinary plant doctors are urgently needed on the doctoral level to synthesize and apply the large quantity of complex information generated by contemporary agricultural research and the advent of new technology. Only such an advanced educational program can provide the depth of knowledge and real-world problem solving experiences necessary to produce effective plant doctors.