Introducing Josie Dillon, New Statewide Fruit Outreach Specialist

Hello and welcome back to another season of Notes from the Field: A Grower’s Perspective! The goal of this series is to engage and foster connections between growers during the field season. As a reminder, each season we will follow a different fruit crop grower in the state and learn how they navigate in-season challenges and find opportunities for enhancing the longevity, sustainability, and productivity of their operations.

I wanted to kick off the 2025 season by introducing myself. My name is Josie Dillon and I am the new UW-Extension Statewide Fruit Outreach Specialist. This is a brand new position, acting as the “boots on the ground” for our fruit team here at UW-Madison. I’ll also be working with home fruit growers through our UW-Extension Horticulture program. I am so excited to be joining the Wisconsin Fruit News Team and look forward to meeting you all!

I am likely a new name for most of you, though some of you may recognize me from a few field days and conferences over the past few years. Before starting this position, I worked for a combined 4 years with a Wisconsin-based non-profit organization focused on sustainability planning in food systems. My role included working directly with Wisconsin fruit growers as a crop scout, and I served as our in-house entomologist.

In between my stints working as a fruit crop scout here in Wisconsin, I earned my M.S. in Entomology from the University of Minnesota. My research focused on insect vectors and in-field spatial distribution of a potato virus. Overall, my passion lies in collaborating with growers to meet their goals and developing grower-facing, evidence-based resources and management guidelines.

In the next Notes from the Field: A Grower’s Perspective, I’ll be introducing Ben Kraus, perennials manager at Gwenyn Hill Farm, who we will follow for the remainder of the growing season. We will touch on early-season pest pressure and monitoring/management considerations within a diversified fruit system.

‘Till next time!

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