Janet Turner

Janet Turner, Technician 3, Pear Cultivar Trials, Pear Rootstock and Training Systems B.S., General Agriculture, Oregon State University, Cum Laude Phone: 541.386.2030 ext. 18 Send e-mail to Janet Turner

Work Experience
Janet spent 22 years working for the Forest Service at the Wind River Ranger Station and Nursery in Carson, Washington. Nursery duties involved assisting in the annual harvest of 27 million seedling conifers, plus overseeing transplanting and sowing operations in the Spring. In early summer she would transfer to the Ranger Station. She spent most of her time working for the Fisheries/ Hydrology department. Her summers were spent surveying streams for fish habitat, taking fish population counts, monitoring and implementing streambank stabilization projects, and setting up and monitoring water quality baseline stations in the watersheds on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Winters were spent compiling and analyzing data gathered from stream surveys. Janet was also on call for the district fire fighting crew during the height of the fire season.

Current Responsibilities
Janet is the technician for the pear cultivar, pear rootstock and high density training system trials.

The cultivar trial is an ongoing search for alternative cultivars to create an enhanced market window by adding options to the standard season for the current commercial pears grown in the Mid Columbia region. Field trials have been supplemented with a consumer sensory evaluation that Janet and the staff developed in 2004. The survey has been used by the UC Davis Pomlogist in Kelseyville CA for determining the consumer preference of the products available from their cultivar trial, and. it has been adapted to reflect consumer’s initial evaluations of fresh cherry cultivars.

Along with the regular horticultural maintenance duties, she collects fruits samples for determining optimum harvest maturity and conducts storage and ripening evaluations throughout the winter.

The pear rootstock trial seeks a dwarfing, precocious rootstock to be used in the new high density training systems that will offer the following;

• Produce a marketable crop in the 3 rd or 4 th year.
• Produce a compact tree that will be adaptable to high density orchard systems.
• Produce target fruit – fruit that generates a return to the grower over and above the growing, harvesting, packing, and shipping costs.

Rootstock selections from around the world as well as domestic clones are being tested to identify characteristics that will create a more efficient orchard system.

They are being trialed in a vertical fruiting wall and a cordon system, containing 907 trees/acre. The trial also compares the vigor of finished trees, benchgrafts, and rootstocks budded in place.

Davis / Deschuytter / Duckwall / Einhorn / Laraway / McCarty / Riedl / Rojas / Seavert / Smith / Spotts / Turner / Wallis