Justin O'Dea

Justin O’Dea is a Regional Agriculture Specialist Faculty with Washington State University Extension, based in Vancouver, WA. He runs a research and education program that includes mushrooms as part of a focus on specialty crops with relatively high economic return potential for farmers producing on smaller acreages. Justin’s mushroom research focuses on adapting traditional outdoor shiitake production systems using hardwood log substrates to the western Pacific Northwest environment. His program aims to help provide diversified farmers and beginning mushroom producers with shiitake production enterprise options that have low barriers-to-entry, are resource-use efficient, and can bolster overall farm profitability.