Jennifer Kling is a Professor (Senior Research) with the Crop and Soil Science Department. She will retire on June 30, 2023 after 23 years of service.
Jennifer first came to OSU as an undergraduate student in the Crop Science Department in 1976. She took a course in Plant Breeding from Dr. Warren Kronstad and was inspired to become a Plant Breeder. She completed her graduate studies in corn genetics in Lincoln, Nebraska and Raleigh, North Carolina. She was a maize breeder at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, Nigeria for twelve years. Two major goals of her research were to breed for resistance to the parasitic weed Striga hermonthica and to develop maize populations that were tolerant to low levels of soil nitrogen.
In 2001 she returned to the US and accepted a temporary position with the OSU Barley Breeding program. In the years since then she taught courses on World Food Crops, Experimental Design in Agriculture, and Advanced Plant Breeding and Quantitative Genetics. She was the OSU meadowfoam breeder for ten years, producing varieties for the region that are high in seed and oil yield. In 2016 she took a position as a Research Associate with the Pacific Northwest Tree Improvement Research Cooperative where she conducted quantitative genetic analyses on Douglas Fir. Recently she developed a continuing education course on Seed Saving for the Small Farms Program at OSU.
Jennifer plans to continue to work as an independent plant breeder after she retires from OSU. She currently has projects on fiber flax, oats, and meadowfoam. We thank Jennifer for her many contributions and wish her well on her next endeavors.