HYDROPONICS - ONLINE CERTIFICATE
GAIN SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE NECESSARY FOR PROFITABLE HYDROPONICS" Having completed the Advanced Hydroponics Course, I have since gone on to open my own successful hydroponics retail shop, now in it's third year of trading"
- Ted
This course provides an understanding of modern technology and its application to growing plants, with emphasis on hydroponic production. Learn about hydroponic systems (NFT, Rock wool, aeroponics, gravel culture); plant growth requirements, growing structures (greenhouses), nutrients, management of vegetables, cut flowers, herbs, berries, and more.
A great foundation for working in hydroponics (eg. a hydroponic shop, farm, consultant business, etc).
Study from home- Covers a wide variety of commercial applications
- Gain extensive understanding of hydroponics and skills necessary for employment
- Gain confidence in your knowledge.
Accreditation: International Accreditation & Recognition Council (IARC)
General Objectives:
- To provide a sound basis of knowledge in horticultural principles as they apply to the culture, use and management of plants in various production situations.
- To provide new and existing employees who are unable to undertake on campus training with the opportunity to gain appropriate knowledge in the field of plant culture, use and management.
- To prepare employees for supervisory and managerial positions in the field of plant culture, use and management.
- To provide horticultural business owner/operators (or those contemplating ownership) with appropriate training to apply technical skills to the management of the physical, financial and human resources in which they have made, or will make, a substantial investment.
- To provide an understanding of modern technology and its application to growing plants, with emphasis being placed on hydroponics production of commercially valuable plants.
Course structure
This subject has 30 lessons, each requiring about 12 15 hours of study:
- Introduction to Hydroponic Technology, Why grow hydroponically? - Definition, history, resources, the industry.
- Plant Growth Requirements Light: artificial light, light balancers
- Plant Growth Requirements Nutrition: nutrient requirements, deficiencies, toxicities, pH, conductivity, salinity, growth regulators
- Plant Growth Requirements Temperature
- Hydroponic Growing Systems:basic concepts and designs, site considerations.
- Growing Media: types, properties, uses.
- Hydroponic Nutrient Solutions nutrient formulae, preparing solutions.
- Hydroponic Equipment componentry, nutrient delivery, pumping, testing and monitoring
- Growing Structures Design and Construction types (greenhouses, shadehouses, cloches), materials, siting
- Environmental Control A Heating, Cooling
- Environmental Control B Lighting, Shading.
- Environmental Control C Carbon Dioxide Enrichment
- Plant Culture In Hydroponics A: trellising, pruning, pollination, transplanting. problem diagnosis
- Plant Culture In Hydroponics B
- Aggregate Culture
- Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) Culture
- Rockwool Culture
- Other Techniques: wick systems, flood & drain, bag culture, aeroponics, etc.
- Irrigation Soil Requirements
- Irrigation Systems
- Plant Propagation: seed & cutting propagation & tissue culture
- Market Gardening Cut Flowers
- Market Gardening Vegetables
- Other Plants In Hydroponics: herbs, grasses, indoor plants
- Pest and Diseases: identifying the problem, pests and diseases in hydroponics
- Weeds: identification and control
- Managing A Commercial Hydroponics Farm: crop scheduling & selection, standards, layout.
- Management Organisation and Supervision
- Marketing Promotion and Selling
Special Project: Prepare a detailed report of at least 2,000 words, plus photos or diagrams, on a particular
aspect of technology which you have studied that significantly assists growing.
PLUS 2 exams: one at the end of lesson 15, the other at the completion of lesson 30.
EXAMS
There are 2 exams: one at the end of lesson 15, the other at the completion of lesson 30. For more information regarding exams please visit http://www.acsedu.com/enrolment/exam-application.aspx
Some of our Horticulture Tutors
Maggi Brown Cert.Ed.(Environment)
Maggi is regarded as an expert in Organic Growing throughout the UK, having worked for two decades as Education Officer at the world renowned Henry Doubleday Research Association (now Garden Organic). She has been active in education, environmental management and horticulture across the UK for more them three decades.
Yvonne Sharpe RHS Cert.Hort, Dip.Hort, M.Hort, Cert.Ed., Dip.Mgt.
Over 30 years of experience in horticulture, education and management, Yvonne hastravelled widely within and beyond Europe, and has worked in many areas of horticulture from garden centres to horticultural therapy. She has served on industry committees and been actively involved with amateur garden clubs for decades. Yvonne is also a member of the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners (NSALG).
John L. Mason Dip.Hort.Sc., Sup'n Cert., FIOH, FPLA, FAIH, MACHPER, MASA
Mr Mason has had over 40 years experience in the fields of Horticulture, Business, Education and Journalism. He has extensive experience both as a public servant, and as a small business owner. He has held positions ranging from Nurseryman and Landscape Designer to Director of Parks and Recreation (City of Essendon) and magazine editor.
John is a well respected member of many professional associations, and author of over forty books and of over two thousand magazine articles. Even today, John has written a number of best selling reference texts used by horticultural courses at universities and colleges internationally. His publishers include Simon and Shuster, and Landlinks Press (CSIRO Publishing
Dr. Lynette Morgan B. Hort. Tech., Ph.D. in Horticultural Science Dr Morgan has a broad expertise in horticulture and crop production, and a keen appreciation of the global scene. She travels widely as a partner in Suntec Horticultural Consultants, and has clients in central America, the USA, Caribbean, South East Asia, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand.
Gavin Cole B.Sc., Psych.Cert., Cert.Garden Design, MACA
Gavin has over 20 years of industry experience in Landscaping, Publishing, Business and Psychology. He was operations manager for a highly reputable British Landscape firm (The Chelsea Gardener) before starting up his own firm. He has exhibited at Chelsea Flower Show, and designed gardens across England and Australia. He spent the best part of three years working in our Gold Coast office, partly as a writer for Your Backyard (gardening magazine), and partly as a tutor in both psychology and horticulture.
Martin Powdrill, Bsc (Hons) Applied Science (Resources Option), MSc Computer Studies, Permaculture Design Certificate. Martin’s goal as a catalyst for sustainable change brings together his strengths and experience in his environmental, project management, and business backgrounds. For 25 years, Martin has been involved in Telecommunications, IT, Organisational Development, and Energy Conservation & Efficiency, prior to setting up his own Permaculture consulting business. He wishes to make a real difference to people and the planet, by actively bringing new perspectives to current challenges and exciting opportunities. To realise this, he enables diverse groups of people to flourish and release their untapped potential, by re-igniting their passion and creativity. Additionally, Martin volunteers with many local environmental and community groups, and facilitates discussions on climate change, peak oil, and transition towns. Martin has an allotment, and is currently enrolled in the Scottish Mountain Bike Leader Award programme.
Rosemary Davies Dip Hort Sc. Rosemary trained in Horticultural Applied Science at Burnley, a campus of Melbourne University. Initially she worked with Department of Agriculture Victoria as an extension officer (Garden Advisory Service), taught horticulture students, worked on radio with ABC radio (clocking up over 24 years as a presenter of garden talkback programs, initially the only woman presenter on gardening in Victoria) and she simultaneously developed a career as a writer. She is author of several booka and hundreds of articles.
Diana Cole B.A. (Hons), Higher Dip. (Garden Design), RHS Advanced Cert. Horticulture, Cert Admin.Mgt., Dip. Inst. Personnel Management In addition to her RHS horticulture, garden design, City & Guild construction, NPTC pesticide/legislation and business/management qualifications, Diana has a variety of skills drawn from setting up Arbella Gardens, a landscape gardening business. She also has administrative, management and training delivery experience drawn from her employment in other organisations such as the NHS and other educational institutions such as schools & universities. She has augmented her training expertise having gained the Preparing to Teach in the Life Long Learning Sector qualification. She also has experience gained through working as a volunteer in a number of different roles including amenity style gardening in parks and practical conservation work. Diana is also a member of the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners Limited (NSALG).
Learning Facilities
ACS follows the old fashioned idea that “the student comes first”. Our staff are told to treat every student as an individual and respond promptly to their enquiries; and the facilities we have developed and continue to develop, are all focused on that goal. Facilities include:
- Offices in two time zones (UK and Australia) –which means an international team of academics are responding to students 5 days a week and 16 hours a day.
- An online student room with unique resources that are only available to students studying our courses, including online library.
- Bookshop offering quality downloadable e books
- A data base of 20 million words of unique information written by our staff over 3 decades that can be drawn upon if needed by academics for use in supporting our students.
- Systems that ensure assignments are tracked, marked and returned to students, fast -commonly within a round 1 week & rarely more than 2 weeks (note: many other colleges take longer).
- The school is active in social networking and encourages students to connect with us and each other.
- No automated handling of student phone enquiries. When you call you get a real person; or leave a message and a real person will call you back within a day, but more commonly within an hour or two.
- No additional charges for extra tutor support over the phone or email.
- Free careers advice for graduates –It is our policy to provide support and advice to our students even after they graduate. If a graduate needs help with getting a CV together, or advice on setting up a business or looking for work; they only need ask.
- The quality of academic staff is higher than many other colleges.
How our Courses Differ
- Courses are continually improved –we invite feedback from all graduates and change courses immediately the need is detected.
- Courses are relevant to the whole world –we try hard to teach make the learning transferable to any region or country because the world is increasingly a global economy
- Courses written by our staff, teach different skills to standard courses; giving a unique mix of skills and knowledge to provide a career advantage. Do you want an accredited certificate and the same skills as 100 other job applicants; or one of our courses with skills that no other applicants have?
- Certificates and diplomas are longer. They teach you more, and our qualifications have built a reputation amongst academics and industry as being a very high standard for this reason.
- We are focused on helping you learn in a way that improves your capacity to understand your discipline, apply knowledge, and continue learning and developing your capabilities beyond your course.
These things cannot be always said of other colleges.
Career Opportunities
Study alone can never guarantee career success; but a good education is an important starting point.
Success in a career depends upon many things. A course like this is an excellent starting point because it provides a foundation for continued learning, and the means of understanding and dealing with issues you encounter in the workplace.
When you have completed an ACS course, you will have not only learnt about the subject, but you will have been prompted to start networking with experts in the discipline and shown how to approach problems that confront you in this field.
This and every other industry in today’s world is developing in unforeseen ways; and while that is unsettling for anyone who wants to be guaranteed a particular job at the end of a particular course; for others, this rapidly changing career environment is offering new and exciting opportunities almost every month.
If you want to do the best that you can in this industry, you need to recognise that the opportunities that confront you at the end of a course, are probably different to anything that has even been thought of when you commence a course.
BOOKS
Visit our School bookshop at www.acsebook.com
- Downloadable ebooks that can be read on ipads, PC’s, Laptops, or readers like a Kindle.
- Titles are written by our principal and staff.
- Anyone can purchase books –ACS students are offered a student discount
