Dani Lightle name Pesticide Network Coordinator
The Oregon State Alum recently returned to OSU’s North Willamette Research and Extension Center
Dani Lightle has been named the Pacific Northwest IPM Network Coordinator for the Western IPM Center. Dani follows former network coordinator Katie Murray, who recently left the Oregon IPM Center to become the executive director of Oregonians for Food and Shelter.
The Regional IPM Network Coordination Signature Program helps to communicate pest management needs and priorities to federal regulators and lawmakers. When federal agencies consider changes to pesticide registrations, they issue a “Request for Information” to gather feedback from growers and others with on-the-ground expertise. The Western IPM Center gathers comments from a network of informed sources throughout the Western region and provides the agencies with “coordinated comments,” reports from the network coordinators, to assist the agencies in their decision-making.
Dani’s current position as IR-4 Specialty Crops Pesticide Registration Research Leader made her a natural choice for this role. Her current program, based at the North Willamette Research and Extension Center, focuses primarily on IR-4 food crop residue research projects, alternatives for chlorpyrifos and pesticide residuals in berry crops. Dani is also familiar with many members of the working group, based at UC Davis, from her previous position with UCANR as Orchard Systems Advisor for Tree Crops.
In addition to IR-4 work, Dani is also managing a handful of other IPM projects. She recently initiated a project with Kristy Buckland to look at IPM tactics to manage cabbage maggot. The new research aims to look at combining IPM practices such as using lethal attractants in combination with trap cropping. They also want to examine current culling and sanitation practices to reduce overwintering populations of the pest.
Find out more: Pacific Northwest IPM Network Coordination
This article appears in Oregon IPM Insider, Vol 2 Issue 1, Winter 2021.