Apr 25, 2016Montana’s treasure: Women in seed potato certification program
As part of our Women of the Industry features in the May/June issue of Spudman, we are featuring video interviews with eight women of the Montana Seed Potato Certification program (MSPC) in the May eSpudman. The MSPC is located in Bozeman on the Montana State University (MSU) campus and led by Nina Zidack, director and Extension plant pathologist.
Zidack has been MSPC director for more than eight years. We do all of the activities in support of certifying seed potatoes in Montana,” Zidack said in this video. Commonly referred to as the potato lab on the MSU campus, it also maintains all of the mother stock for the potato program.
Anna Jesperson, lab assistant, helps Susie Siemsen with summer testing and helping supervise the student workers.
Siemsen, assistant plant pathologist and lab manager, oversees the summer virus testing and winter postharvest testing. Elaine Nichols is the tissue culture supervisor. She has worked in the lab for 26 years. “I provide disease-free plantlets for the growers,” she said.
Barbara Oyster is a part-time lab assistant at the potato lab for the past four years. “What I mainly do is maintain the tissue culture lab,” she said.
Becky Evans is the program coordinator for MSPC. Along with office work, she does photography for the garden seed directory. She started working part time for the lab in 2007 washing dirt
Theresa Meeker is a part-time research assistant and has worked in the lab for 26 years. Over the years she’s worked on disease testing and propagation and assisted on research projects.
Eileen Carpenter has been working in the lab for 30 years and as a field inspector for the past 15 years. “I’m a lab researcher but I’ve done everything over the years,” Carpenter said. She said that field inspection is the favorite part of her job.
