ITHACA, N.Y. -- Two Cornell University Web-based, distance-education courses in horticulture -- on organic gardening and on grafting -- will be offered in coming months.

The registration deadline is tomorrow, Jan. 25, for the eight-week organic gardening course, which runs from Feb. 1 to March 31 and costs $200. The course is for gardeners who have at least some gardening experience. It will cover fertility, pest control, cultural methods, tools, and include a variety of suggested hands-on activities. The course uses organic-gardening principles to explore vegetables, flowers, lawn care and perennial plants.

The 10-week grafting course, The How, When and Why of Grafting for Gardeners, runs from March 1 to May 6; registration deadline is Feb. 23. The cost is $300, which includes shipment of live hibiscus plants used in the laboratory exercises, a grafting knife and supplies. The course will teach chip-budding, T-budding and top-wedge grafting. By focusing on principles as well as the practices, the course content can be applied to other species and methods so that gardeners will learn to propagate plants that don't root easily. Gardeners also will learn how to graft several fruit varieties onto a single tree or create unusual growth forms, such as tree peonies.

These noncredit courses, developed by Ken Mudge, professor in Cornell's Department of Horticulture, include multimedia lectures, video demonstrations, hands-on grafting activities, online quizzes and interactive discussions. Students will receive a certificate of completion issued by Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

For more information, see http://www.cce.cornell.edu/hortdl or e-mail mw38@cornell.edu .