Extension Specialist

Faculty or staff appointment at a land-grant university with an extension mandate — usually split appointment (40% extension / 40% research / 20% teaching or similar). Runs annual variety trials at research stations, issues disease and pest advisories during the growing season, hosts field days, writes plain-English fact sheets, answers grower phone calls about everything from PVY management to storage CO2, and shows up at county agent training. Bridges federal funding (USDA NIFA, SCRI), state appropriations, and grower check-off dollars.

University of Idaho (Aberdeen, Kimberly, Parma R&E Centers), Washington State University (Othello, Prosser), Oregon State (Hermiston), North Dakota State (Fargo, plus Northern Plains Potato Growers Association cooperators), University of Maine (Presque Isle), University of Wisconsin (Hancock Research Station), Colorado State (San Luis Valley), Cornell (Freeville), Michigan State, Penn State. Field days draw growers from 200 miles out.

Grant deadlines that fall during planting visits. Pressure to publish in American Journal of Potato Research and Plant Disease while also driving 40,000 miles a year to grower meetings. Industry funders who want clean answers when the data shows trade-offs. Budget cycles that threaten station closures. Replacing a retiring specialist with someone who can both run a replicated trial and hold a room of skeptical growers.

A variety trial result that growers actually adopt within two seasons. A late blight advisory issued early enough to save a region's crop. A grad student placed at a USDA ARS lab or a processor's agronomy program. A SCRI grant funded on the first submission. A field day with standing room only.

Replicated small-plot research design, ARM (Agricultural Research Manager) software for trial data, R and SAS for stats, blight forecasting models (BliteCast, late blight DSS), USABlight reporting network, NIFA REEport for grant reporting, qPCR for pathogen ID in the lab, plot combines and small-plot planters at the research station, the station's own weather network, and a heavily-used institutional email distribution list.

Field season April-October — trial planting, in-season ratings, harvest data collection. Disease advisory season June-September. Field days late July through August. Grant writing November-February (SCRI deadlines, NIFA AFRI cycles). Grower winter meetings December-February (Idaho Potato Conference, Northern Plains Potato Growers Convention, Wisconsin Potato Expo). Manuscript writing wherever it fits.