Jacqueline King
WSU – Northwestern Washington Research & Extension Center
16650 S.R. 536, Mount Vernon, WA 98273
360-848-6130
e-mail: kingjack@wsu.edu
Jacky King has worked since 1979 in the Fruit Horticulture department at NWREC, and has been on staff since 1994. She has a Master’s Degree in English Language and Linguistics(Hebrew Language) from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana (1968) and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks (1966).
Her experience in fruit horticulture began in 1971 as a volunteer in Israel, working in the orchards of a kibbutz (collective settlement) in the upper Galilee. There she first learned the basics of orchard work, ranging from maintenance (pruning, spraying, etc.) and harvest to managing small harvest crews. Later, as a regular member of the orchard crew, she helped prepare and plant new orchards, train young trees and instruct others in training methods. She also gathered and recorded data for experimental trials, including rootstock and variety trials and irrigation experiments conducted in kibbutz orchards. This experience later proved valuable to her work at NWREC. During her 7-year stay in Israel she continued to work in orchards, and her responsibilities expanded to include insect monitoring and reporting, coordination with spray applicators, safety procedures, etc.
In 1979 she came to work as part-time technical assistant to Dr. R.A. Norton in the Mount Vernon Fruit Horticulture program, and then as technical assistant to Gary A. Moulton who took over management of the program in 1991. Over the years she has been involved with field tasks such as basic maintenance of tree fruit, strawberry, raspberry, and grape experimental plots and the harvest, storage and evaluation of fruit specimens. The current aspects of her work emphasize data collection and management, web site design and maintenance, photography and graphics, helping to generate grant proposals and participation in the writing and editing of scientific articles and educational bulletins.
She enjoys meeting the public at open houses, slide shows and fruit displays, where she answers questions on fruit varieties and culture. One of her favorite research projects is the variety trial of disease resistant ornamental crabapples, summarized in the bulletin EB 1809 Crabapples for Western Washington Landscapes (1995). She also worked on EB2001 Growing Wine Grapes in Maritime Western Washington, which summarizes the results of the wine grape trials from 2000-2005and is in press (November 2005). Two more publications in process of review are New Alternative Fruit Crops for Western Washington and a long awaited update and revision of EB0937 titled Fruit Handbook for Western Washington: Varieties & Culture. Both of these bulletins should be available December 2005–January 2006.
From 1996 to 2005 (with a one year hiatus in 2004) she has represented the Fruit Horticulture department on the station's safety committee.