Plant Breeder/Associate Research Director

Halsey, Oregon

The Job

Responsibilities:

Breeding: Use your education and honed skills to design and execute breeding strategies, select parents, create crosses, and evaluate quality/yield potentials of progeny.
Varietal development: Partner with seed production team members to assure seed stock multiplication quality. Participate in the key documentation and registration processes associated with varietal licensing.
Field research: Establish nurseries, collect and analyze data, document findings, and be a part of the overall research farm management.
Leadership: Assist in setting breeding objectives, field and farm team management, and budgeting.
Communication & collaboration: Partner with internal and external stakeholders of the cover crop, forage, and turf seed trade, including universities, fellow breeders, and governmental agencies.

Education: MS degree in agronomy or horticulture with emphasis on plant breeding, genetics, forage management, and seed production.
Experience: 3-5+ years in forage and seed production research along with supervisory experience.
Skills & knowledge: Deep understanding of and appreciation for applied plant genetics, physiology, forage and production agronomy, plus use of analytical statistics. Excellent organizational, communication, and basic leadership skills. Ability to work independently and as part of a team. Have basic mechanical and farm equipment operation skills.
Personal qualities: Passionate, detail-oriented, curious, hard-working, ethical, and teachable.