Current grant projects:

Creating Impactful Education with Producer Co-Educators Project, I serve as PI for this Western Region SARE Professional Development Program funded project to support educators across Oregon from 2022 to 2024. Cohort members are from OSU Extension, Oregon Tilth, Oregon Climate Action Network, and Oregon Department of Agriculture. Each cohort member has partnered with one or more producers as co-educators to plan and design the education program and collaboratively teach other producers.

Increasing Climate Change Related Mental Health Awareness and Resiliency Strategies for Producers, as a co-PI for this Western Region Agricultural Stress Assistance Program funded project I contributed to the development and piloting of a novel climate stress module with three groups of farmers in fall 2023. The module increased producers’ awareness of climate change-related mental health impacts, allowed them to brainstorm strategies for developing greater resilience, and provided resources for mental health services and stress management. As a founding member of the new college-level Climate Innovation Workgroup, in 2024 I contribute to collecting, analyzing, and publishing data on the impacts of climate stress on Oregon producers. In 2024 additional funds have been awarded by the Hoecker Extension Innovative and Replication Program to provide climate stress and grief training for extension professionals and community partners across the state.

Cover Cropping and Reduced-Tillage Systems for Onion in Eastern Oregon, as a co-PI for this Specialty Crop Block Grant Program funded project, I will contribute to the design of educational programming and resources that center on the needs of the farmers. From 2023 to 2026, this project aims to identify and test potential cover crops with a conservation tillage system in an onion crop rotation in eastern Oregon.

Recent projects:

Western Region IPM Center article on this work in Oregon Building Community Partnerships to Improve IPM Outcomes (October 2021)

Gain insights from the first three partnerships in Increasing the Reach of Integrated Pest Management through Community Partnerships (July 2021)

• Biologically-based IPM for NE Oregon Cropping Systems with Darrin Walenta (Extension Agronomist), state and local NRCS, NRCS West Technical Support Center, Xerces Society, PlantWorks, and local farmers began in 2017.
  
• Middle Rogue Pesticide Stewardship Partnership (PSP) with Gordon Jones (General Agriculture) and Rick Hilton (Extension Entomologist) at SOREC, Rogue River Watershed Council, Jackson Soil and Water Conservation District, and local stakeholders and growers. See the Middle Rogue PSP Strategic Plan for details about this ongoing work.
  
• Cranberry Pesticide Resistance Prevention Program with Cassie Bouska (General Agriculture), OceanSpray, Oregon Cranberry Association, and local farmers in 2018-2019.
  
• Smallholder Pesticide Risk Reduction Education Program was co-developed through a successful train-the-trainer program with vegetable farmers in Senegal from 2013 to 2016. The resulting scaled-up pesticide risk management reduced the use of highly hazardous pesticides and increased the adoption of protective mitigation practices that minimized exposures.