Crop and Soil Science

Extension Small Farms Program

• Hay, forage, and cereal production.
• Fertility and irrigation management.
• Weed control in organic forage systems.

Potato Variety Development and Other Row Crops

• Cultural Management
• Pest and Disease Control
• Seed Production
• Irrigation Efficiencies

Physical mechanisms that control water motion in soil, porous media, and fractured porous media.

Seed Science and Technology

Seed quality evaluation in relation to the physiology of seed germination, vigor, dormancy, storability, post-harvest technologies, and the relationship to field performance. Accepts only self-funded graduate students.

Small Farms, Specialty Crops (Small Fruits & Berries and Tree Fruit - Olives), Soil and Plant Fertility and Nutrition, Organic Production.

Marion County,  Polk County

Focus areas: Farm and food system policy, local and regional food supply chains, community food system development.

Crop and soil science courses, including:  irrigation principles and practices, plant pathology, entomology, weed management, plant genetics, seed, cereal, oil, fiber, potato and global food production.

USDA-ARS

Online Course Development and Delivery, facilitating professors building courses and students taking online offerings.

• Field crops extension/research in the South Willamette Valley
• Integrated pest management
• Biological control

Commercial agriculture Extension in Jackson and Josephine counties

The processes at the interface between organic matter and mineral surfaces, including mineral surface properties, organic matter properties, bonding mechanisms, adsorption processes, mineral-microbial interactions, and organic matter turnover dynamics.

Projects:

Nutrient cycling in natural and human-disturbed ecosystems, including the attenuation of increased nitrogen inputs to terrestrial ecosystems by soils and vegetation, detrital controls on soil organic matter formation

• Statistics and GIS-based soil mapping
• Photogrammetry and 3D modeling of soils
• Online teaching pedagogy
• Science communication

Dryland Cereal Production

Research Agronomist, USDA-ARS

Research projects are on N dynamics in forest ecosystems; use of stable isotopes for quantifying N cycle processes; ecology of Frankia in soil; functional diversity of soil microbial communities.

Current:

Jay and his research groups have studied

Teaching in environmental science, global change biology, forest and soil science, and sustainability. Research in global change and landuse impacts on forests and soils, natural and anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, carbon storage and sequestration.

Responsible for Extension and Research programming related to cropping systems in Malheur County.

Research interests include crop water use, irrigation, water and chemical movement through soil, macropore flow, water quality, and alternative crop evaluation and management in a semi-arid climate.

My research focuses on Potato Breeding and Germplasm Improvement using traditional, molecular, and genomic tools. My program will aim at developing new potato cultivars with increased biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, nutrient efficiency and processing quality.

Field crops extension and applied research activities in Deschutes County

• Small grain production
• Legume intercropping for soil nitrogen and soil and water quality improvement.

We are screening various legume crops for suitability in intercropping with grain.

Extension Agronomist with field crop responsibilities in Union, Baker, and Wallowa Co.

Agricultural Literacy