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Conference Speakers
Daniel Klittich, PhD
From a Dream to a Necessity; Practical Technology Advances on the Farm
Director of Agronomy
Mission Produce
Dr. Daniel Klittich is the Director of Agronomy at Mission Produce, a global leader in avocados and mangos, where his work focuses on improving field productivity and farm profitability. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis in Entomology, specializing in integrated pest management (IPM) and silicon nutrition. Dr. Klittich brings broad experience across agricultural research, ag retail, fertility, horticulture, and commercial farming. He serves on the California Avocado Commission Board in a Handler seat, chairs the Production Research Committee, and with his wife farms 44 acres of avocados and citrus in Fillmore, California, while raising their three children.
Johanna Del Castillo Múnera, Ph.D.
Emerging and Established Pathogens in California Nurseries: Risks and Response Strategies
Assistant Professor of Cooperative Extension
University of California, Davis
Dr. Johanna Del Castillo is an Assistant Professor of Cooperative Extension, specialized in greenhouse and nursery crops, in the Department of Plant Pathology at UC Davis. Since 2020, she initiated the Greenhouse and Nursery Pathology research program. As the principal investigator, she is interested in developing and improving sustainable solutions for disease control through studies of fungal and oomycete pathogens affecting greenhouse and nursery crops. Before this position, she worked as an Assistant Project Scientist at UC Davis, and at Bayer Crop Sciences with biological controls. As a post-doctoral scholar at UC Davis and at the University of Maryland, she studied the plant health effect of implementing reduced irrigation on greenhouse crops. Del Castillo obtained her Ph.D. in Plant Pathology from Michigan State University, where she worked at characterizing Pythium species from ornamental crops in the state, and her undergraduate and master’s degree from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.
Peter Henry
Tracing the origin, spread and future management of strawberry Fusarium wilt race 2
Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology
University of California, Davis
Peter Henry is an Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of California, Davis with more than 15 years of experience on the epidemiology, evolution, and management of fungal pathogens of berry crops. His research program discovered Fusarium wilt race 2 in Oxnard and led the statewide management response.