The College of Agricultural Sciences at Oregon State University has appointed Dr. Silvia Rondon as the interim director of the Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center (HAREC). She is taking on the leadership role previously held by Dr. Clive Kaiser who recently stepped down to take a faculty position at Lincoln University in New Zealand.
HAREC is one of college’s 11 agricultural experiment stations that are strategically located across the state at 14 locations to meet the unique needs of the Oregon’s densely diverse agriculture and natural resources systems. The Hermiston experiment station serves nearly 500,000 acres of irrigated agriculture in Oregon and Washington's Columbia Basin. The center concentrates on discovery and implementation of agricultural and horticultural opportunities and provides solutions to production constraints. Research at HAREC emphasizes identification of new crops or and production practices, irrigation technologies, plant breeding and varietal evaluation including nutritional contents, integrated pest management of insects and insect-transmitted diseases, plant disease control and environmental issues.
In addition to serving as interim director of HAREC, Dr. Rondon is also the director of OSU’s Integrated Pest Management Center (OIPMC). A national search for a permanent director for HAREC will start in the fall of 2021.