Home: Table of Contents

Unit 1: Soil

Unit 2: Organic Soil Management

Unit 3: Plants

Unit 4: Plant Applications

Unit 5: Crop Management

Unit 6: Composting

Unit 7: Marketing and Certification

Unit 8: Practical Applications

Appendix

Fundamentals of Organic Farming and Gardening
An Instructor’s Guide - Revised for 2009

Unit 3 – Plants

Unit Overview
A basic knowledge of plant anatomy and physiology is essential for crop management.  Knowing more about plants allows management decisions that enhance their growth and development, meaning better quality and larger harvests.

Lesson Text (word doc)
Lesson Plans (word doc)

Teacher Demonstrations
1. Variety of plants or pictures of plants
2. Celery in a glass of colored water
3. Pictures or models of plant and animal cells
4. Plant and small chain to represent transpiration
5. Spanish moss on a branch (commensal) , a clover plant (including roots) (beneficial), and a diseased plant (parasitic).  Describe the three types of symbiotic relationships represented.

Video
Riverview Farms Video (.mov)
Focus Questions (word doc)

Student Experiments and Activities
1. Plants disassembled (word doc)
2. Plant cells versus animal cells worksheet (word doc)
3. Plant hormone worksheet (word doc)
4. Vascular tissue comparison worksheet (word doc)
5. Agricultural Crop Families (word doc)

Power Point Presentations
1. Unit presentation (ppt)
2. Plant morphology (ppt)
3. Growth Regulators (ppt)
4. Plant Structures (ppt)