Garry McDonald
Senior Consultant (Entomology)
Bachelor of Science (Biology), Master of Agricultural Science (Entomology), PhD Ecological Entomology
After a career of more than 40 years in sustainable agriculture and entomology, Garry is an integral and experienced team member. His career passions have been in insect ecology, the optimisation of sustainable farming systems, and education towards sustainability and energy efficiency, thus being a natural fit within the Cesar crew.
Garry’s passion lies in the development of quality, relevant and insightful approaches to the delivery of pest information and IPM training to agricultural advisors and growers. For example, Garry has driven the use of predictive modelling in pest management, creating DARABUG, a computer program for simulating development rates of insect pests, which continues to inform pest management decisions today. And after decades of studying the ebbs and flows of pest cycles in agriculture, his experience is invaluable in making sense of seasonal pest trends.
He has studied extensively, completing a Bachelor of Science, Masters of Agriculture Science, and a PhD in Invertebrate Ecology, and brings a veritable wealth of working experience and knowledge to cesar. This includes 22 years as a research scientist with the Victorian Department of Agriculture/Primary Industries (DPI), 10 years as Director of the Rutherglen Research Institute and 6 years as Director of Swinburne University’s National Centre for Sustainability. Nowadays, Garry is also an Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne, a research volunteer with Bush Heritage Australia and periodically works with the Goulburn Broken CMA on the Nature @ Work sustainable agriculture initiative.
Garry is a keen cyclist, wood worker, gardener and apiarist with his own urban and country bee hives!