OER by Discipline: Agriculture and Horticulture

Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, fisheries and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in cities.

This book pays tribute to the excellent work done by dedicated research teams on crop improvement and adaptation to drought-prone environments in West Africa. Rather than compiling 40 years of research on this topic, we opted to share the latest developments relevant to concepts, methods, and technologies associated with dry cereals and legume crops’ production in the semiarid West Africa.

This book covers basic principles in the genetic improvement of crop plants. Emphasis is on methods of cultivar development in self-pollinating, cross-pollinating and asexually propagating crops.

This open textbook places emphasis on the design of a process pipeline for continuous development of new improved cultivars as a means to implement the cycle of crop improvement.

This textbook provides an introduction to plant genetics and biotechnology for the advancement of agriculture.

History and Science of Cultivated Plants narrates how humans transitioned from foragers to farmers and have arrived at present-day industrial agriculture-based civilization. It entails myths, historical accounts, and scientific concepts.

This text is an introduction to soil physical properties and processes. It contains both an activity/lab manual and a textbook.

This textbook represents a commitment to excellence in horticulture education at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

This is a large collection of images provided by the USDA. One can search for images in the following areas: Animals, Crops, Education, Field research, Fruits & veggies, Illustrations, Insects, Lab research, and Plants. The images are high quality and are free to use.

This book was created to support teaching of an introductory unit on plant environmental physiology. It makes use of various images of cells and tissues to introduce and illustrate the range of plant organelles, cells, tissues, and organs.

A collection of videos for agriculture educators that you can share with your classroom and also information about FFA.

This class presents the application of principles of soil mechanics. It considers the following topics: the origin and nature of soils; soil classification; the effective stress principle; hydraulic conductivity and seepage; stress-strain-strength behavior of cohesionless and cohesive soils and application to lateral earth stresses; bearing capacity and slope stability; consolidation theory and settlement analysis; and laboratory and field methods for evaluation of soil properties in design practice.

The Future of Food is an introductory-level science course that emphasizes the challenges facing food systems in the 21st century, and issues of sustainability for agriculture and other food production activities.

We've brought AGRICOLA, PubAg, and the NAL Digital Collections (NALDC) together in one place.

An international and cross-disciplinary scholarly and scientific open access journal on the science of cultivating the soil, growing, harvesting crops, and raising livestock.

This tutorial/simulation consists of three topics. In topic 1, students investigate water potential in various, real-life situations. They review components of the water potential equation with the help of “Professor Waterman”.

Provides access to Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs) which are small learning units focused on environmental sciences (soil, water, climate, policy, ecosystem services), ecology, natural resources and agricultural management. The material is peer-reviewed and shared among EcoLearnIT users.

Lessons, animations, and other educational materials related to agriculture, horticulture, plant physiology, and other topics.

The manual highlights the multidisciplinary aspects of soil science with laboratories focused on soil formation, classification, and mapping; soil physics, soil biology; soil chemistry; and soil fertility and management.

Providing Timely, Accurate and Useful Statistics in Service to U.S. Agriculture

Virtual Soil Science Learning Resources (VSSLR) group is focused on developing innovative, OER for a variety of undergraduate and graduate natural resource courses and programs