Jay Pscheidt: Oral History Interview

This interview is with Jay Pscheidt of Oregon State University. In this interview, Jay talks about how he came to be in Oregon, transitioning from studying potatoes to all kinds of woody perennials.Jay talks about his journey from pre-med to bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin. After attending a lecture by a plant pathologist, he realized he could apply all his newfound knowledge for the betterment of growers in his area.Jay discusses beginning to work at Cornell, where he switched his focus from potato plants to grapevines. There in New York, he studied a combination of grapes grown for wine and table or juice grapes.Later in the interview, Jay talks about moving to Oregon and getting a job with OSU. He really enjoyed extension services and embedding himself in the community in that way. In addition to teaching a field diagnostic course, in which students traveled all around the state to study different crops, Jay was also in charge of the yearly Pacific Northwest Plant Disease Management Handbook publication.This interview was conducted by Rich Schmidt at Oregon State University’s Botany & Plant Pathology Field Laboratory in Corvallis on April 28, 2026.On March 26, 2026, Jay gave a lecture at Chemeketa Community College’s Eola Campus outlining the highlights of his 38-year career with OSU’s extension plant pathology department. He summarizes some of his team’s key findings while working with 21 different crops, estimating some 4,400 treatments studied for plant disease management.