The Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture seeks to solve pressing worldwide issues such as mitigating climate change, maximizing crop yield sustainably to feed our growing population, improving nutritious food access for all, and creating landscapes to benefit human and environment health.
Specifically, our students learn how to:
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sustainably grow food (fruit, vegetable, and grain), ornamental crops, feed and fiber crops and crops used to make plant-based fuels,
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design environmentally sustainable landscapes that benefit human health and our environment,
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educate the agricultural and extension educators of the future, and
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conduct cutting edge plant-based research aimed at solving critical issues challenging the world today.
We seek to offer every student a diverse curriculum aimed to ensure they gain expertise in an area they are passionate about, that offers many rewarding job opportunities, and that allows them to contribute to making our world a better place in their own way. For instance, we offer course options in horticulture, agronomy, controlled environment agriculture (including hydroponic), urban agriculture, plant molecular biology and genetics, plant breeding, plant pathology and microbiology, ecology, food safety, landscape design and construction, winemaking, beer brewing, and urban agriculture, among many others. These courses are organized in the three programs our department offers: Agricultural Science and Technology, Landscape Architecture, and Plant Sciences. We are also very excited about our new major in Fermentation Science that is jointly offered with the Department of Nutrition and Food Science focusing on how to use the fermentation process to produce a variety of products including beer, wine, yogurt, silage, cheese, and phytopharmaceuticals, among others.
