Shannon Cappellazzi, who received her BS in animal science and her MS and PhD in crop and soil science, all from OSU, recently left the Soil Health Institute to work at Grassland Oregon (GO Seed) as the Director of Research. GO Seed is located in the Willamette Valley of Oregon and breeds and markets a wide range of cover crop and perennial species and cultivars for applications throughout the U.S. GO Seed invested in hiring a Soil Health scientist so that they could incorporate soil-plant-microbial interactions into their research on cover crop and perennial varietal development. The general goal is to increase adoption of cover crops and perennial systems by breeding improved crop cultivars that producers can use as tools to address general and specific soil health challenges. One area of interest is increasing adoption of cover crops in particularly challenging environments like the Inland PNW where low precipitation creates significant challenges to success with cover crops. We will also be focused on quantification of the carbon additions from cover crops and perennials so that producers aiming to participate in carbon markets have a good idea of how adoption of cover crops will increase their likelihood for success in these programs. One key in this research is to understand the performance of varieties under many soil and climatic conditions to ensure producers have the information they need to determine how the product will work on their farm. You can find contact information for Shannon on her GO Seed profile.