OUR PARTNERS

John Wesonga

Associate Professor of horticulture at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. Member of the Horticultural Association of Kenya (HAK) and the International Society for Horticultural Sciences (ISHS). Publication Manager of African Journal of Horticultural Science (AJHS: http://www.hakenya.net/ajhs/index.php/ajhs). Research areas include intensive horticultural production, climate change, circular production system, water saving technologies, urban horticulture and microgreens. Strong passion for agricultural technologies and innovations for empowerment of youth and communities.

Diane Relf

Dr. Paula Diane Relf earned her Ph.D. in Horticulture from the University of Maryland in 1976, pioneering studies in horticultural therapy. She then served as a Professor and Extension Specialist at Virginia Tech from 1976 to 2003, where she integrated horticultural practices with therapeutic methodologies to enhance human well-being. She remains Professor Emeritus, continuing her influence in the field.
In 1973, Dr. Relf played a pivotal role in establishing and shaping the original mission of what is now the American Horticultural Therapy Association (AHTA), writing the by-laws and articles of incorporation, functioning as executive director and newsletter editor from1973 to the mid 80’s, and serving as its president from 1975 to 1979. Based on the response to the international symposium The Role of Horticulture in Human Well-Being and Social Development which she chaired in1990, the International People-Plant Council was formed. She chaired it until 2003, fostering global research and collaboration on the benefits of human-plant interactions. Additional information can be found at: https://rootinnature.ca/the-life-and-work-of-dr-diane-relf/

Tomioka Silk Mill

Located in Tomioka City, Gunma Prefecture, the Tomioka Silk Mill, established in 1872, was Japan’s first full-scale, mechanized silk-reeling factory. In 2014, it was registered as a World Cultural Heritage site, recognized as a valuable facility that tells the history of the silk industry which drove Japan’s modernization. On its vast grounds, the buildings, constructed in a “timber-framed brick” style that combines traditional Japanese timber framing with Western bricks, have been preserved in nearly their original state. The factory architecture, including the silk-reeling plant and cocoon warehouses, was among the largest in the world at the time and is truly impressive. The Tomioka Silk Mill is a foundational site of modern Japan, a place that laid the cornerstone for Japan’s industrial revolution and strengthened economic ties between Japan and the rest of the world.

Mt. Asama North Geopark

Located in Tsumagoi Village, Gunma Prefecture, the Asama-Kita-Roku Geopark is a nature park themed around the magnificent nature created by the active volcano, Mount Asama, and the history of people’s coexistence with it. One of its core areas is Onioshidashi Park. Onioshidashi Park is a place of unique scenic beauty formed when lava from the great eruption of Mount Asama in 1783 cooled and hardened. The sight of the rugged, black volcanic rocks spreading across the landscape leaves a powerful impression of nature’s formidable power on visitors. As you walk along the park’s well-maintained paths, you can enjoy the contrast between the rough lava and the alpine plants that sprout vigorously from the crevices. It is a globally rare volcanic scenic spot where you can viscerally feel the dynamic activity of the Earth.

Daio Wasabi Farm

At the Daio Wasabi Farm in Azumino, Nagano Prefecture, wasabi is cultivated year-round using the abundant, clear streams fed by snowmelt from the Northern Alps. Across the vast farm, the black shade cloths covering the wasabi fields and the crystal-clear streams create a beautiful geometric pattern. The three connected watermills standing by the Tadegawa River, which flows through the farm, are known for being a filming location for Akira Kurosawa’s movie “Dreams” and are a spot that symbolizes the quintessential landscape of Azumino. You can also purchase various wasabi products as souvenirs.

Matsumoto Castle

Matsumoto Castle, a National Treasure, stands in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, and its five-tiered, six-story main keep is the oldest of its kind still in existence in Japan. Constructed from the end of the Warring States period to the early Edo period, it has survived to the present day in its original form without ever being damaged by war. Its most striking feature is the beautiful contrast created by its black-lacquered weatherboarding and white plaster walls. Another unique highlight of Matsumoto Castle is the elegant “Tsukimi Yagura” (Moon-Viewing Turret), which was added for leisure, connected to the rugged, battle-ready main keep.

Shinshu Ishii Miso (Miso Brewery)

Located in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, “Shinshu Ishii Miso” is a historic miso brewery with a history of over 150 years that continues to make miso using traditional methods. On the brewery tour, you can listen to artisans talk about the miso-making process while getting an up-close look at the impressive sight of giant wooden vats lined up. After the tour, you can also enjoy a tasting of miso soup made with three-year-aged miso. At the adjoining restaurant, you can savor dishes that make generous use of their miso, making this a spot where you can experience the deep food and fermentation culture of the Shinshu region.

Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology

The Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology is a museum that preserves and utilizes the factory buildings remaining on the birthplace of the Toyota Group as a valuable industrial heritage site, showcasing the history of Japan’s industrial technology. The museum consists of two main parts: the Textile Machinery Pavilion, which introduces the textile machinery that was the original business of the Toyota Group, and the Automobile Pavilion, where you can learn about the history and technological evolution of the automotive industry. A must-see is the section where operators give live demonstrations, featuring the Circular Loom developed by founder Sakichi Toyoda and the manufacturing processes of early automobiles. Here, you can get a real sense of the passion and technology that supported Japan’s modernization.

Kyoto Obubu Tea Farm

Uji tea from Kyoto is one of Japan’s most prominent tea brands. Located in Wazuka Town, a primary production area for Uji tea, Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms is a dedicated tea artisan that manages the entire process from cultivation to processing and sales. Here in Wazuka, surrounded by stunning tea plantation landscapes, you can experience tea picking and Japanese tea tasting. Through tea, you can experience the quintessential, unspoiled scenery of rural Japan.

Omiya Bonsai Museum

At the Bonsai Museum, you can appreciate a diverse range of bonsai, from masterpieces like precious Japanese white pines over several hundred years old to colorful group plantings of seasonal flowers and plants. The museum features an exhibition room that recreates a formal tatami room display, as well as an outdoor garden where you can view the bonsai from 360 degrees, sharing the charm of the traditional Japanese art of bonsai with both domestic and international audiences. It is a specialized museum where you can learn about the history of bonsai and how to appreciate it, allowing everyone from beginners to enthusiasts to experience the profound world of bonsai.

Winery at Kofu City

Kofu City in Yamanashi Prefecture is a historic center of Japanese winemaking. The tradition of winemaking, which began in the Meiji era, is still carried on by many wineries today. The region’s most distinct feature is its white wine made from　Japanese grape variety, ‘Koshu’. With its delicate aroma reminiscent of Japanese citrus and a crisp acidity, it pairs exceptionally well with Japanese cuisine. The city is dotted with unique wineries, each creating a diverse range of wines that blend tradition with innovation.

Tea Museum, Shizuoka

Shizuoka Prefecture, along with Kagoshima, is a major tea-producing region in Japan, and the Makinohara Plateau is one of the country’s most prominent tea-growing areas. This is a comprehensive tea museum located on this plateau. It features exhibits that introduce the history and culture of tea in Shizuoka, as well as tea cultures from around the world. Visitors can learn about different types of tea, the production process, and how to brew delicious tea. With a Japanese garden and an observation deck offering views of Mt. Fuji, it is a facility where you can experience the charm of tea from various perspectives.

Mum-port Center (Chrysanthemum shipping center), JA Aichi-Minami

JA (Japan Agricultural Cooperatives) is a cooperative organization funded and operated by its farmer members. It supports producers through activities such as the joint marketing of agricultural products, the purchasing of production materials, and the provision of farm management guidance. This facility handles the joint shipment of RIN-GIKU (a kind of disbud type of chrysanthemum) and is used by approximately 200 growers throughout the year. A key feature of this facility is the implementation of an automated flower sorting and packing system, which reduces the labor required by producers for sorting and shipping, leading to expanded production scale and improved quality. Currently, 26 of these automated sorting machines are in operation (across two locations), making it possible to process approximately 52,000 flowers per hour.

Atsuta Jingu Shrine

This shrine enshrines the Kusanagi-no-Mitsurugi (the “Grass-Cutting Sword”), which serves as its primary object of worship and is one of the Three Sacred Treasures of Japan passed down through generations of emperors as a symbol of the Imperial Throne. Since ancient times, it has been revered as a shrine of exceptional prestige, second only to the Ise Grand Shrine, and has received deep veneration from the Imperial Family and samurai commanders. Its vast, verdant grounds are enveloped in a quiet and solemn atmosphere. The Treasure Hall houses over 6,000 valuable cultural assets, including swords and ancient documents donated by the Imperial Family, shoguns, and others.

The Tokugawa Art Museum

This museum houses and exhibits over 10,000 items, including many National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties. The collection is centered on the personal articles of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Edo Shogunate, which lasted for about 260 years from the 17th to the 19th century. It also includes treasures, swords, armor, and furnishings passed down through the generations of the Owari Tokugawa family.　Rather than limiting its collection to a specific field, the museum’s exhibits provide a comprehensive introduction to the life and culture of the daimyo (feudal lords). The building itself is also known as a historic example of the Imperial Crown Style of architecture.

Ano Vegetable Research Station, NARO

For over 100 years since its establishment in 1921 as the Horticultural Research Station of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, the Institute of Vegetable and Floriculture Science, NARO (National Agriculture and Food Research Organization) has aimed to solve various issues surrounding the vegetable and floriculture industries through research. In recent years, the institute has been developing technologies to address challenges such as ensuring a stable supply to meet domestic demand for vegetables and flowers, responding to the increasing demand for processed and commercial food service use, and tackling labor shortages. The Ano Vegetable Research Station, which you will visit, primarily engages in fundamental and pioneering research related to vegetable breeding.

Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine

Dazaifu Tenmangu is the head shrine of all Tenmangu shrines nationwide, dedicated to Sugawara no Michizane, who is revered as the god of learning. Because it was built on the site where Michizane passed away, it is deeply venerated as a sacred place of “Tenjin worship.” The main hall (Honden), designated as a National Important Cultural Property, is characterized by its magnificent and ornate architecture. The shrine is bustling year-round with worshippers praying for academic success and protection from evil. It is especially popular during the examination season, when many students from all over the country visit to pray for success in their exams.

Farmers Market Minamino-Sato

This is a spot filled with the charm of Chikuzen Town, where you can enjoy fresh local produce and specialty processed goods. It offers a rich variety of fresh vegetables, fruits, and rice harvested in Chikuzen and neighboring areas like Asakura, Kiyamatown in Saga Prefecture, and Dazaifu. The selection is so excellent that the place gets very busy, with popular items often selling out, especially after noon.

Kamidera Strawberry Farm

Kamidera Strawberry Farm was established in 2019 by the Research Institute of Kyushu Electric Power Co., Inc., as a smart agriculture demonstration facility. The farm’s all-electric greenhouses are equipped with heat pump air conditioners and mist sprayers. Remote operation is possible via an integrated environmental control system fitted with various sensors, achieving labor-saving cultivation. Kamidera Strawberry Farm practices an extra-early forcing cultivation method, which allows harvesting to begin about two months earlier than with standard forcing cultivation. Here, you will see the strawberry nursery plants for the extra-early forcing cultivation.

Miyajima Island/ Itsukushima Shrine

Miyajima, an island in Hiroshima Bay, is known as the “Island of Gods” and has been revered as a sacred place in its entirety since ancient times. It is celebrated for its stunning scenery and is counted as one of the “Three Views of Japan,” alongside Matsushima and Amanohashidate. The symbol of Miyajima is the Itsukushima Shrine, a World Cultural Heritage site that appears to float on the sea. The shrine’s main buildings, constructed in the Shinden-zukuri style of Heian period aristocracy, were established in their present form by the military leader Taira no Kiyomori. At high tide, they create an ethereal scene as if they are floating on the water. The great vermilion torii gate standing in the sea is particularly breathtaking. The landscape, weaving together the island where gods dwell with a sublime shrine that unites natural scenery and human faith, embodies a spiritual culture and aesthetic unique to Japan.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

Eighty years ago, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima City. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum was established to convey the horrific reality of the damage to future generations and to advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realization of world peace, so that such a tragedy will never be repeated. Hiroshima has been transformed from a place of tragedy into a place of prayer for peace, attracting many visitors from both Japan and abroad.

Hirata Tourist Farm

Hirata Tourist Farm is a “fruit theme park” where you can enjoy harvesting various fruits such as strawberries, grapes, peaches, and apples throughout the year. The farm also features BBQ facilities and a petting zoo, making it a beloved tourist destination for families with children. Here, you will experience harvesting grapes and pears.

Miyoshi Winery

Located in the Miyoshi Basin in northern Hiroshima Prefecture, Hiroshima Miyoshi Winery produces wine using only locally grown grapes from its own estate vineyards and partner growers. In addition to European vinifera grapes such as Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, they also produce wine using Japanese grape varieties. You will have a lunch at a restaurant in the winery.

Wakayama Prefectural Fruit Tree Research Station

For over 110 years since its establishment in 1910, the Wakayama Prefectural Fruit Tree Research Station has primarily focused on developing new citrus varieties, technologies for high-quality and stable production, and methods for pest and disease control. It has also worked on developing smart agriculture and labor-saving technologies, as well as techniques to mitigate wildlife damage. In recent years, the station has expanded its research to include sansho (Japanese pepper), a local specialty fruit tree, and is also investigating new crops like avocados and nuts that can adapt to climate change.

Farmers Market Aridakko

This is a large farmers’ market in Aridagawa, Wakayama, directly operated by JA. As it is located in the heart of the production area for “Arida Mikan,” Japan’s number one mandarin orange brand, the market boasts an unparalleled selection of various citrus fruits available year-round. For souvenirs, why not pick up some of the many varieties of mikan juice or the regional specialty gummies gathered from all over Japan?

The Hill of Mikan

This is a scenic viewpoint overlooking a town in the Arida-Shimotsu region, which has been designated as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS). From the bus window along the way, you can get an up-close view of the terraced mikan (mandarin orange) groves. We will make a stop here for you to get off the bus. While you take in the view of the terraced fields, we will explain the history and unique characteristics of the land use in this GIAHS-designated area.

Experimental Farm of Kindai University

For over 70 years since its establishment in 1952, the Experimental Farm of Kindai University has been engaged in research on the cultivation, genetic resource conservation, and medicinal use of citrus, a specialty of Wakayama Prefecture. Since 1987, the farm has also been cultivating mangoes in greenhouses, and the fruit produced is shipped to the market as a luxury item. Furthermore, they are focused on developing new varieties, such as ‘Aiko,’ the first mango variety to be officially registered in Japan. Here, you will tour the mango greenhouse and the citrus genetic resource orchard.

Kuromon Market

Located in the Minami area of Osaka, Kuromon Market is a shopping street affectionately known as “Osaka’s Kitchen.” Under a 580-meter-long arcade, approximately 150 shops are packed together, primarily selling fresh fish, along with produce, meat, and eateries. While it prides itself on a quality high enough to attract professional chefs for their supplies, the market has become incredibly popular with tourists in recent years. Its biggest draw is the “tabe-aruki” (eating tour), where visitors can have fresh seafood, Wagyu beef, and other delicacies cooked on the spot to enjoy while they walk. The market is constantly bustling with crowds of people from both Japan and abroad.

Cup Noodles Museum

At the Cup Noodles Museum in Ikeda, Osaka, the birthplace of instant ramen, you can learn about the history of instant ramen and the story of its inventor, Momofuku Ando. You can also experience making your very own one-of-a-kind Cup Noodles.

Himeji Castle (World Heritage Site)　

Himeji Castle is affectionately known as “Shirasagi-jō” (White Egret Castle) because its elegant white appearance resembles an egret spreading its wings. Its most remarkable feature is that the main keep, built in the early Edo period, survives in its near-original form, having escaped significant damage from wars and disasters. In recognition of its cultural value and excellent state of preservation, it became one of Japan’s first UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites in 1993. It is also designated as a National Treasure and is renowned as one of Japan’s most magnificent castles.

Maiko Marine Promenade

You will walk along the promenade built into the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, one of the world’s longest suspension bridges, and enjoy the view from 47 meters above sea level.

Kobe-Nishi Seedling Center, JA Hyogo-Rokko

JA (Japan Agricultural Cooperatives) is a cooperative organization funded and operated by its farmer members. This plant nursery, built by JA, grows seedlings for rice, vegetables, and flowers, producing over 50 varieties of vegetable seedlings and over 30 varieties of flower seedlings throughout the year. A unique feature of this facility is its full-order system, where they grow seedlings from seeds brought in by the growers themselves. By implementing a moving bench system, they have improved operational efficiency, making it possible to manage over 20,000 cell trays. Here, you will tour the seedling production system for cabbage, Chinese cabbage, and broccoli.

Ise Jingu Shrine (Nai-ku)

Ise Jingu, or Ise Grand Shrine, is the most sacred shrine in Japan. It enshrines Amaterasu-Omikami, the deity revered as the ancestral kami (goddess) of the Japanese people. The Uji Bridge, spanning the clear Isuzu River, serves as a symbolic crossing from the everyday world into the divine precincts. Once across the bridge, as you walk along the long path covered in fine gravel, you will be enveloped in a solemn atmosphere, surrounded by magnificent trees that are hundreds of years old. Within the sacred grounds of Ise Jingu’s Inner Shrine (Nai-ku), which boasts a history of approximately 2,000 years, you can experience the primordial spiritual landscape of Japan.

Akatsuka Garden Co., Ltd.

Akatsuka Group is a company specializing in the production and sales of horticultural plants, headquartered in the Takanoo-cho area of Tsu City, a region renowned for its flourishing horticulture. The company initially built its business on Satsuki azaleas—for which Mie Prefecture is the number one producer in Japan—and research into mericlone (tissue culture) technology for orchids. Today, its operations have expanded significantly. In addition to breeding and developing new varieties like Rhododendrons and Titanbicus, Akatsuka also operates farms overseas, including in Hawaii. Furthermore, the company is involved in tourism, managing attractions such as a ‘Satoyama’ (traditional countryside) garden where visitors can enjoy seasonal plants, and a research and cultivation farm dedicated to magnificent weeping plum trees. On this tour, we will introduce you to their direct-managed specialty shop, the FFC Pavilion.

Asatsumi Farmer's Market (Lunch)

Asatsumi Farmer’s Market is one of the largest farmer’s markets in the prefecture. It was established through a joint effort by local farmers as a central base for the ‘Takanoo Area Revitalization Project,’ a new initiative in the Takanoo region, which was historically a production center for Satsuki azaleas and nursery plants. At Asatsumi, visitors can purchase farm-fresh produce, freshly made processed goods, and enjoy local cuisine. Among the most popular items are wagashi (Japanese sweets) made with yomogi (mugwort) cultivated on reclaimed abandoned farmland; a traditional ‘Tori-meshi’ (chicken rice) prepared daily in-store by residents; and homemade tofu made from 100% Mie Prefecture soybeans. The facility also features a large plaza that hosts various events. Visitors can also enjoy a stroll through the neighboring ‘Red Hill Heather Forest,’ a beautiful Satoyama (traditional countryside) garden managed by the adjacent Akatsuka Botanical Garden.”

Asai Nursery, Inc. (Kiwifruit Research Farm)

Asai Farm is a research and development-oriented agricultural corporation, boasting one of the largest production volumes of mini-tomatoes in Japan. In recent years, the company has developed one of Honshu’s largest kiwifruit orchards by making use of idle (underutilized) farmland. They have entered a business partnership with Zespri, the leading kiwifruit marketer based in New Zealand, and began shipping fruit in 2022. For both crops, the company recognized that simply importing foreign technology would not yield results due to differences in Japan’s climate and environment. Therefore, Asai Farm’s own research division is independently advancing and adapting these cultivation technologies. On this tour, we will introduce you to their kiwifruit research farm.

Olga Scholten

Dr. Olga Scholten serves as the Scientific Director of the Topsector Horticulture & Starting Materials and the Coordinator external collaboration at Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in the Netherlands.

In her role as Scientific Director, Dr. Scholten, is responsible for the execution of the knowledge and innovation agenda of the Topsector Horticulture & Starting Materials, by the development and management of highly innovative research programs. These programs focus on fundamental science, applied research, and valorization of outcomes through public-private partnerships and collaboration with other research funding bodies.

Until last year, Dr. Scholten’s research focused primarily on plant breeding, particularly crop genetic improvement. Her work mainly focused on applying molecular genetics and genomics to increase resistance to pests and diseases in various crops, and to improve yield and quality traits. She has contributed to the understanding of plant-pathogen interactions, the development of molecular markers for use in breeding programs, and the sequencing of the onion genome.

Throughout her career, Dr. Scholten has been involved in various research projects aiming to improve the resilience and productivity of crops. Her work has practical applications in agriculture, particularly in developing crop varieties with higher levels of resistance to diseases and environmental stresses, thereby supporting the advancement of sustainable agricultural practices.

Dr. Scholten has an extensive publication record, with over 100 research works that have earned numerous citations, reflecting the impact and relevance of her work in the scientific community and breeding companies.

In her current role at WUR, Dr. Scholten still manages research programs, including the Green Breeding program for organic and conventional farming systems. Additionally, she has mentored PhD and MSc students and collaborated with other researchers to advance the field of plant breeding. Her work contributed to our understanding of plant biology and had practical applications in agriculture, particularly in developing cops with higher levels of resistance to pests and diseases, thereby contributing to global food security.

Yves Desjardins

Yves Desjardins was full professor at Laval University, affiliated with the Institute of Nutrition and Functional Foods. As the Symrise-NSERC Chair on the prebiotic effects of fruits and vegetables, his research primarily centered on the impact of polyphenols in promoting gut microbial homeostasis, supporting gut barrier integrity, and maintaining overall health. He was PI on numerous preclinical and clinical studies focused on type-2 diabetes, cognitive decline, low-grade inflammation, urinary tract infections, and cancer. He published more than 160 articles in peer reviewed journals cited more than 5500 times in the last 5 years (h-index 56).

Dr. Desjardins has been an active ISHS member since 1986. He organized the first International Symposium on Health Effects of Fruits and Vegetables in Québec City (FAVHEALTH 2005) under the auspices of ISHS, which led to the creation of the ISHS FAVHEALTH division shortly after. He chaired the IHC-2010 OECD Symposium – “Emerging Topics in Health Effects Fruit and Vegetables”, organized the ISHS International Strawberry Symposium in 2016 and the International Congress on Polyphenols and Health in 2017. He was ISHS Board Member responsible for publications from 2010 to 2018. He received honorary memberships from the Italian Society for Horticulture Science (2013) and ISHS (2018) for is outstanding service to the Society.

Nara Prefectural Fruit Tree and Medicinal Plants Research Center

This is a key research center for fruit trees and medicinal plants, strategically located within the prefecture’s largest fruit-producing region. Our research activities include breeding new varieties of persimmons, developing pest and disease control technologies, and investigating the cultivation suitability of new potential fruit crops for the area. Additionally, the center features an adjoining Persimmon Museum, which showcases materials and promotes information related to persimmons.

Nishi-Yoshino Persimmon Sorting Facility, JA Nara-ken

This is the largest persimmon sorting facility in the prefecture. It was established in 1999 by merging four regional sorting facilities.　Equipped with special chambers for removing the astringency from astringent type-persimmons, the facility can sort a maximum of approximately 200 tons per day. It operates from July to early December.

Seiwa Chrysanthemums Cultivation Cluster

Located in Heguri town in northwestern Nara Prefecture, this production area cultivates small-flowered chrysanthemums for the cut flower market on approximately 85 hectares of well-maintained agricultural land. While cultivation is predominantly open-field, a stable supply system from May to December has been established by strategically using over 200 different varieties and leveraging the area’s varied elevations, which range from 50 to 400 meters above sea level. With an annual shipment of approximately 40 million stems, it boasts the largest scale of production in Japan during the summer and autumn seasons, and has successfully established the ‘Heguri no Kogiku’ (Heguri’s Small Chrysanthemums) brand.

Awaji Hanasajiki (Awaji Flower Gallery)

Awaji Hanasajiki was established by Hyogo Prefecture in 1998 as a premier flower destination befitting Awaji’s reputation as ‘The Island of Flowers.’ Located on a highland plateau at the northern end of Awaji Island, at an altitude of 235 to 298 meters, the park features vast fields of seasonal flowers that slope gently toward the sea (Total area: approx. 15 hectares). Here, a grand panorama of flowers unfolds against the backdrop of the Akashi Strait and Osaka Bay, with lovely seasonal blossoms creating a dreamlike world. The park was named ‘Awaji Hanasajiki’ because it offers a premium viewing gallery—a ‘sajiki’—from which to enjoy the ‘carpet of flowers’ spreading below. Since the entire park is your ‘gallery’, feel free to stroll around and find your own perfect ‘seat.’ We invite you to experience a moment of peace, comfort, and healing from this sublime floral gallery overlooking the sky and sea.

Rose cultivation facility, Kunieda Co., Ltd.

In 2017, in response to the trend of larger-scale florists and the growing demand for a wider variety of flower types, Kunieda Co., Ltd. constructed a new 18,700 m² facility. It was the first in Japan to be equipped with a state-of-the-art environmental control system from the Netherlands, designed to meet the needs for increased volume and varied lot sizes. This facility allows for the year-round cultivation of roses under optimal environmental conditions, utilizing systems for heating and cooling, shade and heat-retention curtains, and supplemental lighting. As a result, the company can now produce high-quality roses stably throughout the year. Furthermore, Kunieda is actively pursuing labor-saving measures by incorporating the latest equipment, such as automated pesticide-spraying robots, semi-automated mobile harvesting carts, and automatic flower sorting machines.

Vegetable Greenhouse cluster

The vegetable greenhouse cluster in Kita-Yamada-cho, Kusatsu City, is located on a plain in southern Shiga Prefecture. This area is part of an alluvial fan that was formed by the flooding of the former Kusatsu River, and the soil is predominantly sandy. The region enjoys one of the milder climates in the prefecture and benefits from its convenient access to major cities like Kyoto and Osaka. Historically, this land was covered with mulberry fields for sericulture during the Meiji era (1868-1912). From the Taisho era (1912-1926), farmers began shipping ‘Yamada Nezumi Daikon,’ a local traditional radish, to Kyoto for pickle processing. Since the 1960s, the area has undergone significant development of greenhouse production. Today, it has become a major vegetable production hub with approximately 150 growers, 58 hectares of farmland, and nearly 2,000 greenhouse structures such as hoop houses. The primary crop is mizuna, along with other produce like green onions, spring radishes, spinach, and melons.

Lake Biwa Museum

The Lake Biwa Museum in Shiga Prefecture is a comprehensive museum themed around lakes, where visitors can enjoy learning all about Japan’s largest lake, Biwa.　A highlight of the museum is one of Japan’s largest freshwater fish exhibits. The tunnel aquarium, where you can see endemic Lake Biwa species and the giant ‘Biwako-o-namazu’ (Giant Lake Biwa Catfish) swimming, is truly impressive. The museum also features a rich variety of hands-on exhibits, including a ‘micro-aquarium’ for observing plankton and fossils that you can actually touch. Here, you can experience the nature and culture of Lake Biwa with all five senses.

Vegetable Seedling Center, JA Awaji-shima

Our organization, JA Awaji-shima, serves the southern part of Awaji Island, a prime vegetable-growing area thanks to its rich soil and mild climate. The region is especially famous for its branded ‘Awaji Onions’ and ‘Awaji Island Lettuce,’ which are popular throughout Japan. We built this seedling center with a clear mission: to help our local farmers. It reduces their workload through automation, provides a reliable source of healthy seedlings, and can act as a backup supply hub during emergencies. The center is equipped with state-of-the-art technology, including seedling refrigeration units, heat-tolerant growing systems for high-temperature seasons, an eco-friendly washing and sterilization system, and high-speed automatic seeders. We produce enough seedlings here to cover more than 500 hectares of farmland for key crops like onions, lettuce, and cabbage.

Carnation greenhouse cluster

Awaji Island has developed into one of Japan’s leading flower production regions, leveraging its warm winter climate to cultivate a wide variety of cut flowers, including carnations, stocks, sweet peas, and chrysanthemums. Among these, carnation cultivation, which began here in the 1930s, occupies the largest greenhouse area on the island. The primary cultivation method is the ‘winter-spring harvesting, single-year cycle,’ where cuttings are planted in early summer and harvested from winter through the following spring. Currently, Hyogo Prefecture ranks fourth in Japan for the total number of carnations shipped. In the greenhouse, you will see standard carnations being grown using a method known as fertigation, or hydroponic soil culture.

Philippe Tixier

Philippe Tixier is a distinguished agroecologist, based in Vientiane, Laos. He graduated in ecology and earned his Ph.D. in agronomical sciences from the Agronomic School of Montpellier. Philippe works at CIRAD, where he focuses on integrating empirical and modelling methods to develop novel agro-ecological systems. His work aims to enhance the sustainability and performance of agricultural systems through innovative approaches such as agroforestry and food web ecology. Philippe has made significant contributions to the field of agroecology, including the development of innovative approaches such as agroforestry and agrosystems that link to food web ecology. Philippe’s work has been widely published in leading scientific journals, and he has been a key figure in several international research collaborations. Philippe’s contributions to the field have been recognized globally, making him a leading voice in agroecology and sustainable agriculture.

Vasileios Gkisakis

Researcher – agronomist specializing in agroecological / organic farming approaches for Mediterranean tree crops. Scientific coordinator in several international & regional research projects with special focus on pomology, biodiversity, soil health and climate resilience. Board member of Agroecology Europe Association and moderator of the Greek Agroecological Network. Member of the Agroecology Working Group of EU’s Standing Committee on Agricultural Research (SCAR-EU). Visiting professor in CIHEAM (Sustainable Agriculture MSc program) and other European academic institutions. Manager of an organic olive farm in Greece.

Hyogo Prefectural Technology Center for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

As a key research institution supporting agriculture in Hyogo Prefecture, we are engaged in a wide range of development projects. For grain crops such as rice, wheat, and soybeans, we focus on breeding and developing high-quality cultivation techniques using smart agriculture technology. For horticultural products—including vegetables, fruits, and flowers—we are developing labor-saving, high-yield, and high-quality cultivation technologies through low-cost controlled-environment systems. We are also creating technologies to combat global warming, particularly measures against high temperatures. Furthermore, we work on developing technologies to promote environmentally conscious agriculture, including soil management and pest control. As the region’s Pest Management Center, we also provide pest outbreak forecasts and offer guidance on crop disease diagnosis and control measures. On this tour, the Fruit Tree Division of our Agriculture and Horticulture Department will showcase research examples related to Hyogo’s specialty fruits, such as grapes, chestnuts, and figs

Kasai Agricultural Research Center, Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd.

Sumitomo Chemical’s Agro & Life Solutions Research Laboratory aims to help create healthier and more hygienic lives, and to contribute to improving the yield of food crops and agricultural productivity through its expertise in organic synthetic chemistry, biology, and formulation technologies. The laboratory is engaged in the development of new agricultural chemicals and functional fertilizers, more effective and safer household insecticides, and technologies for preventing infectious diseases.The laboratory collaborates with Sumitomo Chemical’s overseas Group companies to incorporate the needs of global customers into its R&D activities, thereby contributing to the expansion and globalization of the company’s business. Kasai Agricultural Research Center serves as the central site for domestic field trials of agrochemicals and fertilizers conducted by the Company’s Agro & Life Solutions Research Laboratory.

Tomato Greenhouse, SONEC CORPORATION Co., Ltd.

Our Creation: “Tokimeki” Tomatoes. We are passionately committed to producing tomatoes with the desire to deliver fresh, highly nutritious fruit packed with a rich umami flavor and sweetness. “Tokimeki” is the Japanese word for a feeling of excitement or sparkle, which is what we hope you’ll experience. We have adopted a new cultivation method using the “IKEUCHIPonics®” Semi-Dry Fog Spray Hydroponic System, developed by IKEUCHI Co., Ltd. This system uses special spray nozzles to apply a nutrient-rich mist directly to the root zone. By finely adjusting the volume, frequency, and fertilizer concentration of the mist according to the growth stage of tomato, we can maintain the plant’s health while enhancing its deliciousness. Furthermore, by incorporating the latest advancements like IT, we aim to create a new vision for agriculture — one that is safe, clean, and less labor-intensive. It’s a method that is gentle on both the tomatoes and the people who grow them, inspiring the next generation to see farming as an exciting career.

Hyogo Prefectural Flower Center

This facility serves a dual purpose: it is a park designed to offer a place of relaxation, while also functioning as a center for spreading knowledge and improving techniques related to flower cultivation. It was established as a core institution for creating a vibrant community rich in flowers and greenery. The park opened in conjunction with the completion of the Chugoku Expressway, as part of the region’s ‘Green Corridor Initiative.’ The grounds are centered around the beautiful Kamenokura Pond and feature a large greenhouse filled with a tropical atmosphere, various flowerbeds of all sizes, and a tree garden (arboretum). Wild birds can be seen enjoying the pond, while the greenhouse is home to a stunning array of delicate and large-flowered plants from tropical and subtropical regions. Among our collection, we are particularly proud of our Begonias, Streptocarpus, and carnivorous plants, which are some of the most extensive in all of Japan.

Julie Sardos

Julie Sardos is a biologist and geneticist specializing in the characterization and conservation of banana genetic resources. She works within the Banana Research Program at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, where she is in charge of the molecular characterization of banana accessions at the International Musa Transit Centre (ITC), the world’s largest collection of banana germplasm.
Julie has conducted field collecting expeditions across Papua New Guinea and Pacific Island countries, contributing nearly 150 new banana landraces to the ITC. Her work also includes the on-farm characterization of banana diversity, particularly in Papua New Guinea and Vietnam, enhancing understanding of locally maintained genetic resources.
Her current research applies modern genomic tools to study the diversification of clonal crops, such as banana, aiming to uncover how genetic factors and human practices influence crop diversity. Through her work, she seeks to support the conservation, and the sustainable and improved use of banana germplasm for future food security and crop resilience.

HASEGAWA Toshihiro

Dr. Hasegawa is an executive researcher at the Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, NARO, Tsukuba, Japan. After graduating from Kyoto University, he worked as an assistant professor at Kyushu Tokai University and an associate professor at Hokkaido University before joining NARO in 2016.

He is a crop physiologist and specializes in environmental crop responses. He recently served as a Coordinating Lead Author of the Working Group II contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

HIGASHIYAMA Tetsuya

Tetsuya Higashiyama began his pioneering work on live-cell analysis of plant reproduction at The University of Tokyo, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1999. After serving as an assistant professor in the same department for several years, he joined Nagoya University as a full professor in 2007. During his time at Nagoya, he and his colleagues established the interdisciplinary Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM), which brought together biologists and synthetic chemists to advance research on key cell-to-cell signaling molecules in plant reproduction. In 2022, after holding joint appointments at both Nagoya University and The University of Tokyo for three years, Professor Higashiyama fully returned to The University of Tokyo. He currently leads the International Leading Research Program, “Key-Molecule Network in Plant Reproduction (KEPLR),” which involves collaboration with nine principal investigators in Japan and over 20 principal investigators in Europe.

Recent Representative Awards:
2017, Kihara Memorial Foundation Academic Award
2018, Inoue Prize for Science
2018, Chunichi Cultural Prize
2018, Botanical Society of Japan Academic Prize
2020, The Asahi Prize
2024, The Japanese Society of Plant Morphology Award

ITO Akiko

Dr. Ito is a Deputy Director of the Institute of Fruit and Tea Science of the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), which is the Japan’s largest research institute and conducts research and development in a wide range of agriculture and the food industry in Japan.
She graduated Kyoto University and obtained her degree in 2000. She has been engaged in the physiology and phenology of deciduous fruit trees. She served as a scientific committee member at the 6th Plant Dormancy Symposium at Kyoto in 2018. Additionally, she served as a specialist committee member of the Food, Agriculture, and Rural Policy Council of Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Japan.
She received the Horticultural Society Encouragement Award in 2002 and the Japan Agricultural Progress Award in 2004.

ITO Akiko

Dr. Ito is a Deputy Director of the Institute of Fruit and Tea Science of the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), which is the Japan’s largest research institute and conducts research and development in a wide range of agriculture and the food industry in Japan.
She graduated Kyoto University and obtained her degree in 2000. She has been engaged in the physiology and phenology of deciduous fruit trees. She served as a scientific committee member at the 6th Plant Dormancy Symposium at Kyoto in 2018. Additionally, she served as a specialist committee member of the Food, Agriculture, and Rural Policy Council of Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Japan.
She received the Horticultural Society Encouragement Award in 2002 and the Japan Agricultural Progress Award in 2004.

Xiuxin Deng

Born in Nov.1961, he got his Ph.D degree in Huazhong Agrcultural University in 1987. He has been researching on citrus germplasm enhancement and genetic improvement. He set up the protoplast fusion technology of citrus in China, and then promoted the establishment of a new breeding channel to generate seedless citrus cultivar via cyto-engineering. His has bred citrus new varieties such as the extra-early ‘Zaohong’ and late ‘Zongcheng’ navel oranges, which are commercially grown in the industry now. Recently, the multi-omics research coupled with the exploration of special germplasm mini-citrus in his laboratory, has led to the revealing the key genes for citrus polyembyony, oil-gland formation and fruit color respectively. He was awarded the‘Outstanding International Horticulturist’by ASHS in 2011, and the fellow of ISC (International Society of Citriculture）in 2012.

Bartolomeo Di Chio

Full professor of Pomology at the University of Basilicata, Italy. His research activities focus on: irrigation and nutrition management of fruit trees; ecophysiology of the orchard under abiotic stress conditions; training systems and light interception; carbon and water footprint of agro-ecosystems. Author of more than 350 papers (140 indexed on Scopus, h-index 34), coordinator and unit manager of several European, national and local projects, member of ISHS, served as chairman of the ISHS Working Group -Water Supply and Irrigation. Member of the Italian Society of Horticulture (SOI) and Coordinator of the Working Group on Irrigation. Convener of numerous national and international conferences, including 4 ISHS symposia.

Kathy Steppe

Kathy Steppe is Bio-engineer, Doctor in Applied Biological Sciences and Full Professor at Ghent University (ORCID: 0000-0001-6252-0704). Since 2008, she guides and manages the UGent Laboratory of Plant Ecology (http://www.plantecology.ugent.be) at the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering. Professor Steppe is specialized in applied plant ecophysiology. She uses an array of plant sensors (commercially available as well as newly, custom-built ones) and medical imaging techniques (microCT, MRI, PET) in combination with mechanistic plant models to study the dynamic responses of trees and crops to their environment. Plant water relations and carbon metabolism are jointly investigated to better understand the dynamic plant-environment interplay. She does not only investigate how plants respond to changes in climate, with a special emphasis on drought, but also how plants create their own microclimate and how this can be used for indoor climate control. This continuous interaction or “cross-talk” between plant and environment takes central stage in her research. Professor Steppe is active in several scientific advisory boards and committees, including the UGent endowed chair Agrotopia, which is a strategic partnership to advance vertical, high-tech urban horticulture and propel implementation of innovation. In her papers, she reports on new discoveries and high-tech developments within the ecophysiological plant research.

Kenji Kato

Kenji Kato is an Emeritus Professor at Okayama University, Japan, and used to be the president of the Japanese Society of Breeding (2022-2023). His research career was started as a wheat geneticist and fascinated by fantastic diversity of genetic resources. The research activities were expanded to melon in 1990s, especially focusing on Asian melon. He revealed genetic structure of Asian melon through molecular genetic studies and field researches collaborating with the local scientists. He is currently involved in the PGRAsia project of NARO genebank, by which the unique genetic resources of Southeast Asian vegetable crops become available from the NARO genebank, and established the core collection of melon and cucumber in 2023 and 2024, respectively. He graduated and obtained a Ph.D. from the Faculty of Agriculture, Kyoto University. The professional career started from Kochi University, and thereafter moved to Okayama University.

Sandra Correia

Sandra Correia is a Researcher at the Centre for Functional Ecology (CFE), University of Coimbra, and Director of the Department of Protection of Specific Crops at InnovPlantProtect CoLAB, Portugal. Her research focuses on Plant Biotechnology, particularly plant development through in vitro morphogenic processes, integrating those tools in the ex-situ conservation and propagation of plant genetic resources. Sandra is actively involved in international scientific networks and serves as Chair of the International Society for Horticultural Science Working Group In Vitro Culture and as a Management Committee Member and Working Group Leader in the COST Action CA21157 Copytree.

Yoichi Kawazu

Leader of Protected cultivation Vegetable and Flower Breeding Group, Institute of Vegetable and Floriculture Science, NARO. His specialist research area is resistance breeding of melon and cucumber crops using DNA markers.

Matthew Wichrowski

Topic: Insights into Nature-Based Healing: Current Practices and Future Perspectives from Field Experiences
Matthew J. Wichrowski MSW, HTR has been practicing horticultural therapy at Rusk Rehabilitation NYU-Langone Medical Center for 30 years and is currently Clinical Associate Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine. He teaches in the Therapeutic Horticulture Certificate Program at New York Botanical Garden, presents regularly at national and international conferences, and has won many awards for his work. Matt is also Editor-in-Chief of the AHTA’s Journal of Therapeutic Horticulture and Co-Chair of the Nature Based Rehabilitation Task Force, part of American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine’s Complimentary and Integrative Medicine Network. His research interests center around the effects of nature on human health and wellness and his work has been published in a variety of media.

Fabrice Foucher

Senior scientist at INRAE in Angers (France), he leads the “Genetics and Diversity of Ornamentals” research team at the IRHS (Institute of Research in Horticulture and Seeds). A specialist in rose genetics and genomics, he has made significant contributions to understanding flowering and selection in roses, and coordinated the sequencing of the rose genome.

Kotaro Takayama

Dr. Kotaro Takayama is a professor at both the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology and the Department of Food Production Science at Ehime University. His research integrates engineering and agriculture, focusing on advanced technologies for plant production systems. He earned his Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Tokyo in 2004. He began his academic career as an assistant professor at Ehime University and was promoted to full professor in 2017. Since 2018, he has also held a cross-appointment as professor at Toyohashi University of Technology. Dr. Takayama has developed several innovative technologies, including a chlorophyll fluorescence imaging robot and a real-time monitoring chamber for photosynthesis and transpiration. These systems are now commercially available in Japan and are used to assess daily growth and physiological activity in crops such as tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, and lettuce in greenhouses and plant factories. He has played key leadership roles in national research initiatives, including a Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries project on AI-based greenhouse control (2017–2021), an innovative technology program by NARO (2020–2022), and a Ministry of the Environment project on semi-closed, fully electric greenhouses (2022–2024). He also contributes to startup innovation as a Program Manager for the SBIR program at the Bio-oriented Technology Research Advancement Institution, NARO.

Murat Kacira

Dr. Murat Kacira is the director of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center and interim head of the Department of Biosystems Engineering at the University of Arizona. He received his PhD (2000) and MS (1996) degrees in Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering from The Ohio State University. His BSc degree (1991) is in Agricultural Engineering from Cukurova University in Türkiye. Murat’s primary focus is on resource-use efficiency of systems through integrated crop and production system sensing and monitoring, modelling and simulation, alternative energy, and environmental control applications. He interacts with stake holders through technical consultations, organizing and presenting in crop production and engineering short courses with hands-on educational workshops and grower conferences, and presenting at national and international conferences. He is a member of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), American Society of Horticultural Sciences (ASHS) and the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS).

Tadahisa Higashide

Director, Institute of Vegetable and Floriculture Science, NARO
He joined the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 1992. After working at National Institute of Vegetable and Tea Science, National Agricultural Center of Western region, and at NARO Institute of Vegetable and Floriculture Science, he became the head of the Unit and Divisions, before becoming the director of the institute in 2024. He is the Vice-President of the IHC2026. He is also a board member of the Japanese Society Horticultural Science (JSHS). Chairman of the Expert Committee on Smart greenhouse. Visiting researcher at Wageningen UR, The Netherlands (2007-2008). Recipient of ASHS Outstanding Vegetable Publication Award (2010), NARO Research Prize (2019), and JSHS Award (2021). He is the editor of “Tomatoes: Cultivation, Varieties and Nutrition”, “Solanum lycopersicum Production, biochemistry and health benefits” (Nova Publishers, USA). He has authored many other books.

In-Bok Lee

Professor at Seoul National University, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Republic of Korea. He received a PhD degree in 1998 in aerodynamics and energy in agriculture at the Ohio State University, USA. The major research field of I. B. Lee is Aero-Environmental and Energy Engineering in Agriculture while most of his researches combine experimentation and simulation as well as advanced ICT technologies. He conducts studies on greenhouse structural design with wind loads, natural and mechanical ventilation design of greenhouses, energy saving and renewable energy of greenhouse, urban agriculture, space agriculture, information and communication technology and smart farm greenhouses, Deep learning/Machine learning, Virtual reality (VR) and Digital twins (DT), etc. His research team, Aero-Environmental and Energy Engineering Laboratory(A3EL) is very strong for aerodynamic approaches such as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Building Energy Simulation (BES), large-sized wind tunnel, particle image velocimetry, etc and actively develops various advanced experimental tools for field experiments. In-Bok Lee has published over 140 peer review papers and over 250 papers in professional journals.

Yasuaki Sato

Yasuaki Sato is an anthropologist specialised in ethnobotany of bananas. He has conducted fieldworks in Uganda, Papua New Guinea, and Japan for researching the characteristics of cultivation and use of bananas by the people who work with bananas. The findings of this study extend to people’s views of life, nature and the world. He is also collaborating on research on the process of propagation of different banana varieties in Japan and its neighbors. It has implications in a global comparative study of biocultural diversity of bananas.
He is the author of Life-world of Banana Cultivators in Uganda: An Ethnoscience Approach (The Center for African Area Studies, Kyoto University, 2011), and a co-author of Cooking Banana in Africa (JAICAF, 2010), and Embodying Biodiversity: Sensory Conservation as Refuge and Sovereignty (The University of Arizona Press, 2024). He supervises the educational picture book Bananas (Tropical Crops We Want to Know and Eat series) (Rural Culture Association, Japan).

Erin Nicole Rosskopf

Dr. Erin Rosskopf has been working for over 25 years on alternatives to methyl bromide leading research on a series of biological solutions (bio-herbicides, vegetable grafting, biofumigation, soil solarization, and anaerobic soil disinfestation) meant to manage weeds and other soilborne pests and pathogens. She has worked closely with industry representatives and vegetable and in-ground ornamental producers assessing the efficacy and feasibility of alternatives to MeBr. Currently she leads research on anaerobic soil disinfestation for vegetable and small berry production systems in the southeast of the US, evaluating its efficacy against soilborne pests.
She served on the technical review team that advised the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on the scientific merit of methyl bromide Critical Use Exemption Applications. She has also, been the recipient of two US EPA, Stratospheric Ozone Protection Group Awards for her research on alternative fumigant development and holds two patents related to this work.

In her career, she has been the recipient of more than $10 million in research grants and has authored or co-authored over 95 published peer-reviewed papers and 15 book chapters on soil disinfestation, biological control, organic production, and others, besides many conference proceedings and extension articles. Her work is recognized internationally.
Among other things, Dr. Rosskopf serves on the Organizing Committee of the International Research Conference on Methyl Bromide Alternatives and Emissions Reduction (https://mbao.org/) and will convene the 2025 (first) International Symposium on Anaerobic Soil Disinfestation.

Shoko Hikosaka

Dr. Shoko Hikosaka is an associate professor of laboratory of “”Plant Environmental Engineering”” in Graduate School of Horticulture, Chiba University.Her main research topics are “Efficient production of value-added plants under controlled environments” including the functional compounds production under environmental stress in greenhouses and plant factories, and food production in lunar farming. In addition to these core areas, her work also encompasses proposals for “Energy and resource-circulating urban models utilizing greenhouses and plant factories”, including carbon balance evaluations of rooftop and vertical greening on buildings, and strategies for high-efficiency water resource utilization in plant production. The plant materials for these studies include not only horticultural crops but also field crops, medicinal and herbal plants, micro-propagated plants, and genetically modified plants. She has examined plant responses from various perspectives—such as growth rate, water potential, secondary metabolite accumulation, and gene expression etc.

Luis Pérez-Urrestarazu

Dr. Luis Pérez-Urrestarazu is an Agricultural Engineer, and Full professor at the University of Seville (Spain), teaching in the area of agroforestry engineering. In the last 20 years, he has worked in water resources management for irrigation, aquaponics and Urban Greening. Particularly, he has been researching on several aspects of vertical greening systems, such as their performance, optimization of irrigation and lighting conditions, substrates, ecosystem services provided, uses for improving indoor air quality, irrigation with grey water, etc. He holds 3 patents on living walls. He is the Director of the research group AGR-268 – Urban Greening and Biosystems Engineering since April 2012 and Dean of the School of Agricultural Engineering since October 2020.

Po-An Chen

Po An Chen is a researcher at the Agricultural Technology Research Institute (ATRI) in Taiwan. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Horticulture at National Taiwan University, where he studied physiological models of horticultural crops, including branch growth, dormancy, and flowering. During his time at ATRI, he has conducted research on the biosynthesis of aromas in various horticultural crops and developed electronic nose sensing technologies, focusing on tea, coffee, citrus, orchids, and medicinal plants. He has also explored the effects of cultivation techniques (such as fertilization management, light quality and quantity, temperature, and planting substrates) on the bioactive chemical compounds in plants. He served as a guest editor for the journal Horticulturae and is also a board member of the Taiwan Association of Sensory Science and Technology International (TASSTI).

Ryosuke Munakata

Ryosuke MUNAKATA is an Assistant Professor at Kyoto University. He received his Ph.D from Graduate School of Agriculture at Kyoto University, where he has studied the molecular mechanisms of biosynthesis of pharmacologically active metabolites in medicinal plants and horticultural species. He spent for almost three years as a postdoctoral fellow at Universite de Lorraine to develop his basic research on plant specialized metabolism and also studied metabolic engineering to produce bioactive phytochemicals in microbes through synthetic biology. In addition to biosynthesis, now he is working on transport and accumulation of lipophilic phytochemicals in plants to better understand plant specialized metabolism. He served two years as a Budding Editor of the journal Plant and Cell Physiology and is also a board member of Japanese Society for Plant Biotechnology.

Toshiyuki Waki

Toshiyuki WAKI is an Assistant Professor at Tohoku University, he specializes in plant secondary metabolism, particularly in the biosynthesis of flavonoids as natural colorants in plants. His research investigates the formation of metabolons—dynamic enzyme complexes that facilitate efficient biosynthetic flux by associating metabolic enzymes into proximity, thereby enhancing reaction specificity and metabolic efficiency. Understanding metabolon formation is crucial for unraveling the regulatory mechanisms of plant secondary metabolism and has potential applications in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology. In his recent studies, Waki identified the genes encoding carthamin synthase, peroxidase homologs that catalyze the final enzymatic step of carthamin biosynthesis in safflower (Carthamus tinctorius), a species widely used in textile dyeing, food colorants, and traditional medicine. Additionally, he has made significant contributions to elucidating the evolution and function of chalcone isomerase-like proteins, which play a key role via protein-protein interactions with chalcone synthase in the biosynthesis of flavonoid-based natural colorants. This discovery advances the understanding of flavonoid-derived natural colorant biosynthesis.

Shingo Goto

Dr. Shingo Goto is a distinguished scientist in citrus research, renowned for his extensive contributions to the field of citrus genomics and breeding. His pioneering work revealed the genomic mechanism of male sterility in citrus. He also applied this mechanism to marker-assisted selection in seedless citrus breeding. These achievements have been recognized internationally, and he received the Best Poster Presentation Award at ICC 2024. Currently, he is focused on developing genome editing technologies for citrus, following his research as a visiting researcher at the University of Florida.
Dr. Goto has been a member of both the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) and the Japanese Society for Horticultural Science (JSHS) for over 10 years. He has contributed to reviewing and editing the Horticulture Journal, a research journal published by JSHS. His contributions continue to have a profound impact on the citrus industry and beyond.

Naoko Kozai

Dr. Kozai has been a member of ISHS for over 20 years and is also a member of the Japanese Society for Horticultural Science. She has been conducting research for over 20 years to improve cultivation techniques for temperate and tropical fruit trees, particularly clarification the mechanism of fertilization and fruiting, and has made significant contributions to the industry. She has been involved in research on stable production of durian and other tropical fruit trees and improvement of low tree height cultivation techniques in a project conducted in Thailand. She also joined agricultural projects aimed at improving livelihoods in the Indochina region. Her achievements have been recognized by the Japanese Society of Tropical Agriculture. Currently, she is mainly involved in research on stable fruiting of tropical and subtropical fruit trees in Japan.

Zora Singh

Professor Singh is an internationally renowned scientist and his original and outstanding contributions to research and innovation, research training and teaching in horticulture have been recognised by various international and national research and teaching awards. Singh is a Fellow American Society for Horticultural Science, a Fellow Indian Academy of Horticultural Sciences, and Vice-Chair Division of Tropical and Subtropical Fruit and Nuts of the International Society of Horticultural Science (ISHS). He has been a member of ISHS for over 30 years.
He has significantly contributed to Horticultural Science and industry over three decades through research and innovation in production, postharvest, quality and supply chain management of fresh produce at various research institutions in Australia, UK, Italy, and India. His outstanding record of internationally recognised research performance and achievements have been recognised by 11 national and international research awards. He has completed various national and international collaborative research projects and published 432 papers. Singh has developed various technologies being used by Australian horticulture. He is serving on the editorial boards of seven international journals.

Shu-Yen Lin

Dr. Shu-Yen Lin is an emerging leader in tropical and subtropical fruit tree research in Taiwan, recognized for her pivotal contributions to revitalizing native Taiwanese citrus and promoting the sustainable development of Taiwan’s citrus germplasm. Specializing in metabolomics analysis, particularly in aroma profiling, she has advanced the classification and identification of wild citrus populations and developed stress-response indicators to manage the impact of environmental factors on aroma-related metabolites. Additionally, Dr. Lin is actively developing high-resolution sensing systems for the fruit tree industry, unlocking the potential of precision agriculture and smart farming.
A dedicated member of the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) and the Taiwanese Society for Horticultural Science for over 20 years, Dr. Lin exemplifies commitment to horticultural advancement. Her current research focuses on carbon sequestration cultivation techniques for citrus orchards and the development of Taiwan’s avocado industry. By bridging foundational research with practical applications, Dr. Lin continues to drive innovation and sustainability in subtropical and tropical fruit tree cultivation.

Mahmoud Sharafeldin

Mahmoud Sharafeldin is a member of International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS), served as plant production expert, at Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture (MEWA) with responsibility for Plant Production Technologies and Agricultural Research and Extension. Prior to joining MEWA, Professor Sharafeldin worked in academic teaching and research at several institutions, in different countries including Germany, USA, KSA, ARE, and UK. Professor Sharafeldin received PhD from Technische Universität München. Mahmoud Sharafeldin is serving as Vice-Chair of the ISHS-Workgroup Saffron and served as elected Chairperson of the ISHS-Workgroup Moringa.

Pankaj B. Pathare

Dr. Pankaj Pathare is an Associate Professor at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, specializing in postharvest technology and food engineering. With a strong academic background, including degrees from renowned institutions in India and Ireland, he has established himself as a leading expert in his field. Prior to joining SQU, Dr. Pathare served as a researcher at prestigious institutions including Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, Stellenbosch University in South Africa, and the Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET) in India. Dr. Pathare’s research addresses critical challenges in the fresh produce industry, focusing on minimizing mechanical damage, enhancing product quality, and improving energy efficiency. His extensive publication record includes over 100 peer-reviewed articles and numerous conference presentations, earning him international recognition as a keynote speaker. Dedicated to mentoring the next generation of researchers, Dr. Pathare has supervised and co-supervised 18 postgraduate students. His commitment to advancing knowledge in food engineering/postharvest technology is further exemplified by his active involvement in the editorial boards of several leading SCI research journals including Journal Food Quality, Discover Food, Measurement:Food and Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. Recognized as a World Top 2% Scientist by Stanford University in 2022, 2023, and 2024, Dr. Pathare’s expertise and contributions have solidified his position as a leading authority in his field.

Shusuke Matsushita

Professor Dr. Matsushita majors in Farm management and farmer’s decision making as his main research fields. Prof. Matsushita had been working in National Agricultural Experiment Station administrated by Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries as a researcher. And he also had been in Division of Financial Management, Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries Finance Corporation in Japan. Prof. Matsushita received his Ph.D. degree in Agricultural Sciences from Okayama University, Japan in 2002. After these careers, Prof. Matsushita was appointed as professor in University of Tsukuba and Kyoto University in Japan. Now he is making research work in the fields of developing “Decision support system for farmers with stochastic programming methods” and majored in Risk management, Extension and Diffusion related to farmers’ technological investment.
He currently is playing the role of vice presoidemt in Farm Management Society of Japan and Japanese Society of Agricultural Informatics. His research focuses on the economics of innovative agricultural technology and digitalisation through the application of interdisciplinary empirical research methods to support farmers’ decision making depending on their objectives and resource constraints.

Fernando Garcia-Bastidas

Fernando Garcia Bastidas is a renowned banana researcher and lead scientist at KeyGene, based in Wageningen, the Netherlands. He holds a Ph.D. in plant pathology. He is also known as “Doctor Banana” and has dedicated his career to combating Panama Disease, a devastating fungal infection threatening global banana production. Fernando’s pioneering work in developing banana varieties resistant to Fusarium tropical race 4 (TR4) has been inspiring worldwide to develop new banana varieties under greenhouse conditions. Fernando has spent nearly a decade using “classical” breeding techniques. Fernando is a key figure in international research collaborations aimed at detecting the disease and enhancing the resilience of banana plantations to fungal infections. He as passionate about sharing knowledge on bananas and science and has been featured in various media outlets for his efforts to combat the global banana pandemic.

Sebastien Carpentier

Sebastien Carpentier is a bioscience engineer specialised in agriculture and gene biotechnology. He is leading the banana research program of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. This global research program is working on today’s challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, and malnutrition. It delivers research-based solutions that harness agricultural biodiversity and aims to sustainably transform food systems and improve people’s lives. The program manages the world’s largest banana genebank and has renown expertise in banana genetics and conservation, physiology, disease control and agro-ecological management. His personal research focuses on phenotyping the biodiversity of fruit crops and model their interaction with the environment. His research is crucial for prebreeding programs and distributing the crop’s gene pool to improve crop resilience and productivity, particularly in the context of climate change and food security.

Miho Tatsuki

Dr. Miho Tatsuki is a Principal Researcher at the Division of Fruit Tree Production Research, Institute of Fruit Tree and Tea Science, NARO, and a Professor at the Institute of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. She obtained her doctoral degree in 2001 from Nagoya University, in Agricultural Sciences. Her research is focused on the fruit ripening and postharvest physiology. Dr. Tatsuki is working on understanding the mechanism of fruit ripening using molecular biological and physiological techniques, and developing technologies for maintain the freshness of harvested fruits based on these basic findings.

Giuseppina Pennisi

Giuseppina Pennisi is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the ALMA MATER STUDIORUM – University of Bologna. With a background in vegetable crops production and hydroponic systems, she is a FAO-UN consultant in urban agriculture projects. She is also involved in two European projects targeting urban agriculture development in African countries.

Melinda Knuth

Dr. Knuth’s research priorities are on consumer and market research experience by focusing on the interface between people and plants, helping the horticulture industry understand consumer preferences, perceptions, and motivations. Historically, Dr. Knuth has evaluated trade flows of horticulture products in the United States, estimating the economic impact of the North Carolina and United States green industries, assessed the supply chain in the cut flower industry, and estimated consumer acceptance of retail messaging.

She currently is an Assistant Professor in Horticultural Science at North Carolina State University. Dr. Knuth teaches Greenhouse Management, Floriculture Production, Horticulture Business Development, and Horticulture Marketing. Dr. Knuth received her PhD from Texas A&M University in Horticultural Science with a certificate in Applied Statistics. From there, she was a postdoctoral research associate at University of Florida in the Food & Resource Economics Department. She currently serves as the International Society for Horticulture Science Division Chair of Horticulture for Development. Her poster ‘Exploring Artifical Intelligence Literacy Amount Two-Year Horticulture Students’ was voted Outstanding Poster at the 2025 NCSU Conference of Faculty Excellence. Her article What the Research Says About Millennials and Houseplants was the #10 most read article in Greenhouse Product News in 2022 and serves as a GenNext Lead with AmericanHort. Dr. Knuth received GPN Magazine’s 40 under 40 award in 2021 and a 2017 AmericanHort Scholar.

Anna Karin Rosberg

Dr. Anna Rosberg is a researcher and senior lecturer at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Her expertise lies in horticultural sciences, with a focus on microorganisms connected to horticultural produce and production systems. Her research interests encompass a wide range of areas, including plant pathogens in hydroponic production systems, microbial food safety in leafy greens, biological control, irrigation water quality, the prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes related to the use of manure, and biological soil health aspects. Since 2018, her research has focused on organic greenhouse production of vegetables, with a special emphasis on soil health related to crop diversification in the production system. She is currently investigating the effects of crop rotations on soil microbial community composition and functionality in organic greenhouse production. In January 2024, she was appointed chairperson of the Organic Greenhouse Horticulture working group within ISHS. Other assignments connected to her research include serving as an appointed researcher within the SLU Centre for Organic Food and Farming, with responsibility for plant protection in organic horticulture, and she also serves as an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Vegetable Science.

Melinda Knuth

Assistant Professor, Horticultural Science, North Carolina State University, USA.
Dr. Knuth’s research priorities are on consumer and market research experience by focusing on the interface between people and plants, helping the horticulture industry understand consumer preferences, perceptions, and motivations. Historically, Dr. Knuth has evaluated trade flows of horticulture products in the United States, estimating the economic impact of the North Carolina and United States green industries, assessed the supply chain in the cut flower industry, and estimated consumer acceptance of retail messaging.She currently is an Assistant Professor in Horticultural Science at North Carolina State University. Dr. Knuth teaches Greenhouse Management, Floriculture Production, Horticulture Business Development, and Horticulture Marketing. Dr. Knuth received her PhD from Texas A&M University in Horticultural Science with a certificate in Applied Statistics. From there, she was a postdoctoral research associate at University of Florida in the Food & Resource Economics Department. She currently serves as the International Society for Horticulture Science Division Chair of Horticulture for Development. Her poster ‘Exploring Artificial Intelligence Literacy Amount Two-Year Horticulture Students’ was voted Outstanding Poster at the 2025 NCSU Conference of Faculty Excellence. Her article What the Research Says About Millennials and Houseplants was the #10 most read article in Greenhouse Product News in 2022 and serves as a GenNext Lead with AmericanHort. Dr. Knuth received GPN Magazine’s 40 under 40 award in 2021 and a 2017 AmericanHort Scholar.

Eiji Nitasaka

Dr. Eiji Nitasaka is an Associate Professor in the Biolocigal Science at Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. He also serves as the representative of the Morning Glory Project of the National BioResource Project (NBRP), organized by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan.

His main research interests are:
-History and diversification of Japanese morning glory (Ipomoea nil) varieties
-Mechanisms of mutation induction by transposable elements
-Developing a research platform for the Japanese morning glory as a model plant

Takayoshi Yamane

Principal Researcher of Pomology, his scientific interest focuses on fruit orchard management with emphasis on the improvement of tree productivity, image recognition of water stress, fruit density, LAI etc. As for tree productivity, he has evaluated the productivity of V shaped peach tree for ten years.

Koji Sugahara

Group Leader of Institute of Vegetable and Floriculture Science, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO). He holds a Ph.D. degree in Agriculture from Kyushu University, Japan. He has been working on research and development of application software in agriculture, especially vegetable and fruit production.

Evelyne Costes

Lead scientist in Fruit Tree research at INRAE, France, Deputy Director of the Genetic Improvement and Adaptation of Mediterranean and Tropical Plants in Montpellier and Division Chair of ISHS. She has modeled branching and architectural development of fruit trees, She develops digital phenotyping for characterising the genetic variability of apple tree architecture and flowering.

Frederic Boudon

Frédéric Boudon is a senior researcher at CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development) and associated researcher at Inria (National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation). He has worked for over 20 years in mathematical modelling and software engineering for plant modelling and phenotyping. He developed and support various open-source software (PlantGL, L-Py, PlantScan3D, etc) and FSP models (V-Mango). He published and has been a reviewer for high-level scientific journals.

Mai Kobayashi

Mai is an Assistant Professor at Kyoto University Graduate School of Economics, specializing in rural environmental sociology with a particular interest in agroecological agri-food systems transformations as expressed through de- and re-peasantization in a post-development context, particularly as it relates to the dynamics of food sovereignty. Her research thus far has focused on adaptation strategies of new-entry organic farming communities, and diverse (formal and informal) food economies in Japan, as well as historical dynamics of rural development and transitioning farming practices and food provisioning, particularly looking at access to land, seeds, pesticides, and common pool resources in Japan as well as in Bhutan. Her interests stem from work experience with several NGOs, non-profits and farming communities around the world, including Nepal, Nicaragua and Uganda, dedicated to strengthening agroecological food systems. She holds a PhD in Environmental Studies and a MA in Environmental Management from Kyoto University Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, and a BA in Geology and Environmental Science from Smith College, in Massachusetts, USA. Before her current post, she was a researcher at the FEAST Project (“Lifeworlds of Sustainable Food Consumption and Production: Agrifood Systems in Transition”) at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in Kyoto.

Matteo Busconi

Matteo Busconi is Associate Professor of Agricultural Genetics at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy. He is Director of the Research Centre for Biodiversity and Ancient DNA, an interdepartmental research centre, involving researchers with different expertise, of the same University. He carries out research activities mainly in the field of Agricultural Genetics for the characterisation of genetic resources, identification of genes of interest and the development of traceability methods for plant derived food products. He has many years of experience in coordinating or participating in research projects of regional, national or international interest. Among the main research interests, it is possible to cite: study of genetic and epigenetic variability of crops as maize, rice, tomato, bean, saffron, olive, apple, pear, almond, walnut, grapevine and sorghum; study of the genetic variability of species of naturalistic interest as strawberry tree, Taxus baccata L. and Saxifraga tombeanensis (Boiss. ex Engl., 1869); transcriptomics analysis for gene expression analysis in tomato, grapevine and maize; traceability of plant derived products with a main focus in saffron, wine, cocoa and vegetables. He is author of more than 60 publications on international and national journals.

Hirokazu Tsukaya

Professor, Graduate School of Science, University of TokyoEducation and Career:
He earned his Ph.D. in Science from the University of Tokyo in 1993, focusing on the morphogenesis of inflorescence in Arabidopsis. After roles at the University of Tokyo and the National Institute for Basic Biology, he has served as a Professor at the Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, since 2005.

Research Focus:
He specializes in plant molecular and developmental genetics, emphasizing leaf morphogenesis and its diversity. His groundbreaking work has significantly advanced the understanding of genetic pathways that regulate leaf shape, size, and development. His research extends to fieldwork in tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia, studying unique plant species and ecological interactions.

Awards and Honors:
He has received numerous accolades, including:
• The Medal with Purple Ribbon (2021)
• Kumagusu Minakata Prize (2023)
• Botanical Society of Japan Academic Prize (2016)

Editorial Roles:
He has contributed extensively to the scientific community as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Plant Research (2009–2013) and as an editor or advisory board member for journals like PLOS ONE, Development, Growth & Differentiation, and Frontiers in Plant Development.

Publications and Outreach:
Beyond academia, he is renowned for his engaging editorials and books on botany, such as Control of Plant Organ Size and Shape, The World of Gap Plants (Japanese) and Durian: The King of Fruits (Japanese), aimed at popularizing plant science. His work bridges the gap between scientific research and public understanding, making him a prominent figure in botanical education and outreach.

Alexander Vainstein

Professor, The Robert H Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Prof. Alexander Vainstein received a B.Sc. in physics, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His postdoctoral studies at UCLA led to an interest in plant molecular biology, eventually resulting in his current professorial tenure at the Hebrew University’s Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment. Prof. Vainstein is the incumbent of the Wolfson Family Chair in Floriculture and served as a visiting professor at both the USDA and the State University of New York. He has published 167 scientific papers and books, developed 8 patents, and has served as Head of the Hebrew University Graduate Horticulture Program; Graduate Plant Sciences Program and Graduate Biotechnology Program; Head of The Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture; Chief Scientific Advisor of Danziger Innovations Ltd.; Chief Scientist of Plantopia Bio Ltd.; Chief Scientist of Mariana Ltd.; Board of Directors of the National Center for Genome Editing; and President of the Israeli Society of Plant Sciences. His research interests include genomic, metabolomic, and proteomic approaches for the identification of regulatory and biosynthesis-related genes involved in color and aroma production in flowers and fruit; metabolic engineering of plants and yeast; and virus-aided genome modification of horticultural crops.

Ayumi Deguchi

Lecturer, the Graduate School of Horticulture, Chiba University
Research Center for Space Agriculture and Horticulture, Chiba University
Plant Molecular Science Center, Chiba UniversityEducation and Career
A Ph.D. in Agricultural Science was earned from Kyoto University, followed by a research position at Ryukoku University’s Center for Research on Food Palatability. In March 2017, a transition was made to Chiba University, with ongoing work in research and teaching in plant sciences.

Research Focus
Research explores the genetic and molecular mechanisms of flower color, particularly pigment synthesis such as anthocyanins. Special focus is placed on uncovering the mechanisms behind “”black flower”” coloration and examining how environmental factors and viral infections influence ornamental traits through epigenetic regulation. Dahlia, Dianthus, and Catharanthus roseus serve as primary research subjects. Additionally, studies investigate the formation mechanisms of anthocyanic vacuolar inclusions (AVIs), which contribute to antique flower coloration in petals. As a member of the Research Center for Space Agriculture and Horticulture, Chiba University, research has also begun on breeding crops optimized for cultivation in space.

Editorial Roles
As an editorial board member of Horticultural Research (Japan), contributions are made to the dissemination of horticultural science research.

Munetaka Hosokawa

Professor, Department of Agriculture, Kindai University
Agricultural Technology and Innovation Research Institute, Kindai UniversityActivities
President of the Horticultural Society of Japan (April 2024 – March 2026)
Dean of Graduate School of Agriculture, Kindai University
Editor-in-Chief of Horticultural Science Research (April 2020 – March 2022)
Cooperative Member of the Academic Conference JapanResearches
– The foundation establishment of African violet as a model plant
– Development of gene identification techniques using epigenetic flower color and morphology variations in African violet
– Study on the Suppression of Mutation Occurrence During the Propagation of African violet
– Identification of the Gene Responsible for the Gigantism of African violet
– Development of environmentally friendly horticultural production technologies
– Development of low-energy input horticultural production technologies
– Study on Regional Revitalization Using Horticultural Plants

Awards
– Horticultural Society of Japan Encouragement Award
– Horticultural Society of Japan Paper Award (2 times)

Research achievements
https://researchmap.jp/read0057420?lang=en

Zhanao Deng

Professor of Environmental Horticulture and Plant Breeder, University of Florida, IFAS, Department of Environmental Horticulture, Gulf Coast Research and Education CenterEducation and Career
Dr. Deng earned his Ph.D. in Agronomy with a specialization in Fruit Tree Breeding and Genetics from Huazhong Agricultural University in 1988. He began his academic career as a faculty member at Huazhong Agricultural University the same year. In 2002, he joined the University of Florida’s IFAS at the Gulf Coast Research and Education Center. Between these faculty positions, Dr. Deng conducted postdoctoral research on genetic mapping of disease resistance genes at University of Florida and canola genetic research at University of Alberta.Research Focus
Dr. Deng’s research centers on plant breeding and genetics, with an emphasis on developing new caladium varieties with novel leaf colors and patterns, increased tuber yield, improved disease resistance, enhanced stress tolerance, and superior plant performance. Additionally, he has focused on sterilizing lantana, nandina, porterweed, and privet to reduce invasive potential and introducing sterile, non-invasive varieties. In recent years, his breeding efforts have expanded to include blackberries and raspberries, targeting the development of low-chill varieties. Dr. Deng leverages a comprehensive set of genetic, genomic, and biotechnological tools to advance his research objectives. His current projects include genome sequencing and analysis to understand the genetic basis of critical horticultural traits, genomics-assisted selection to enhance breeding efficiency, ploidy manipulation and mutagenesis to enhance ornamental values and herbicide tolerance in plants, and genome editing to improve disease resistance in citrus plants.

Fumie Tazaki

Fumie Tazaki is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Landscape design and Management, University of Hyogo. Her background is in Landscaping, Agriculture, Horticulture, and Occupational Therapy, and she practices Horticultural Therapy. She received her Master’s degree in Medical Science from Wakayama Medical University. She is currently a Ph.D. student at the Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School of Rehabilitation Science.
In 1996-1997, she studied horticultural therapy from Mitchel Hewson, Canada. After returning to Japan, she worked as a professional Horticultural Therapist and Occupational Therapist at an elderly care facility and a psychiatric day care. Currently, she teaches Horticultural Therapy at Awaji Landscape Planning and Horticulture Academy. She published a Horticultural Therapy guidebook in 2006. She is a board member of the Japan Horticultural Therapy Association.
She is involved in research on horticulture and health of the elderly, the effects of plants and horticultural activities on people using the autonomic nervous activity and EEG.

Zhongchi Liu

Zhongchi Liu is a distinguished professor at the Faculty of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen University of Advanced Technology (SUAT). She is also a member of the Shenzhen Institute of Emerging Agricultural Technology at SUAT. Prior to her current roles, she was a tenured full professor at the University of Maryland, USA. Liu is internationally recognized for her expertise in developmental biology, particularly in the molecular genetics of fruit development in strawberries. She has built extensive molecular genetic tools and genomic resources for wild strawberries, contributing significantly to the understanding of fruit development, fruit type diversity, auxin synthesis and signaling in fruit and seed development, and mechanisms of asexual reproduction in strawberries. Throughout her career, Liu has published 120 SCI articles in esteemed journals such as Nature, Genes & Development, Nature Communications, The Plant Cell, and PNAS. She holds editorial positions with The Plant Journal and Frontiers in Plant Science: Plant Evolution and Development. Liu earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in Cell and Developmental Biology from Harvard University, and her B.Sc. in Microbiology from Wuhan University. Her research interests include the molecular mechanisms of strawberry fruit development and asexual reproduction, synthetic biology applications in modifying strawberry traits for vertical farming, and the use of plant chassis cells for efficient production of proteins and small molecules.

Fumio Sato

Dr. Sato began his career in 1995 at the Vegetable and Tea Research Station, now part of NARO. From 2005 to 2006, he was dispatched to Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Upon returning, he served as a Senior Researcher in NARO’s Planning and Coordination Division until 2008.

Dr. Sato then worked as a Senior Researcher at the NARO Vegetable and Tea Research Institute until 2016, and as Principal Researcher until 2019. Since 2020, he has led a research group at the same institute.

His research focuses on cell-formed seedlings for leafy vegetables. He published a management manual in 1997 and developed a bottom irrigation technique for cabbage seedlings in 2001. Dr. Sato has also worked on sustainable vegetable production using livestock manure compost, publishing findings on nitrogen absorption in cabbage in 2008.

Recently, Dr. Sato has developed growth prediction technologies for green onions and broccoli, patented in 2019 and 2020. He also created growth and yield prediction programs for cabbage and lettuce, implemented in WAGRI in 2021. In 2022, he developed a precision shipment prediction system for field vegetables using ICT.

Since 2010, Dr. Sato has been a member of various Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries committees, contributing to several subsidy projects.

Megumu Takahashi

Dr. Takahashi completed his Master’s degree in Department of Agricultural and Environmental Biology at the University of Tokyo in 2014. The same year, he joined the NARO Institute of Vegetable and Floriculture Science as a researcher, focusing on broccoli production system. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 2020. From 2021 to 2023, he served as a technical officer at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, working in both the Secretariat of AFFRC and the Horticultural Crops Division. In 2023, he returned to NARO as a Senior Researcher, and in 2024, he also became an Associate Professor in the Agricultural Science Program at the University of Tsukuba.

His major career milestones include working on techniques to bridge the off-season gap for fresh broccoli and increasing yields for processing broccoli. Dr. Takahashi has made significant contributions to the development of techniques for two heads harvesting and large head production in Japan. His work has been recognized with several awards, including the Horticultural Society’s Outstanding Paper Award in 2020 and the Encouragement Award in 2022.

Francesco Di Gioia

Dr. Francesco Di Gioia is Associate Professor of Vegetable Crop Science in the Department of Plant Science at The Pennsylvania State University.
His integrated research and extension program is focused on improving the sustainability of vegetable crops and their nutritional quality. Working across different crops, growing systems (open field, protected, and controlled environment), and production methods (conventional, organic, soil-based and soilless systems) his research aims at developing and optimizing solutions for improving crop resource use efficiency (water, nutrients, energy), reducing the use of synthetic inputs, and improving the nutritional value of vegetable crops.
Primary areas of research interest include plant nutrition, abiotic stress tolerance, non-synthetic alternative to soil chemical fumigation (Anaerobic Soil Disinfestation), vegetable grafting, cover crops, precision agriculture solutions for real-time management of irrigation and fertilization, plasma agriculture, soilless crops and controlled environment agricultural systems, alternative growing media, agronomic biofortification, and the valorization of agrobiodiversity resources.
Link to web page: https://plantscience.psu.edu/directory/fxd92

Yulin Fang

Yulin Fang, Professor and Vice President of Northwest A&F University (China). He has successively served as the Dean of the College of Enology, the Dean of the Institute of Science and Technology Development, the Vice-Director of the China Wine Technical Committee, and the President of the Grape and Wine Branch of the Chinese Society for Horticultural Science. Prof. Fang focuses on wine grape quality regulation, grape germplasm resource exploration and new variety breeding, mechanisms of wine grape development under abiotic stress, grape and wine flavor chemistry, and simplified cultivation technology for wine grape. In recent years, he has made outstanding achievements in the technical innovation chain covering the whole industry, including precise quality regulation of wine, mining of regional varietal flavors, abiotic stress physiology and resistance cultivation, grape quality improvement after flood and drought disasters, and standardization of wine grape production. All his research activities has significantly contributed to the grape and wine industry in the arid and semi-arid regions of Northwest China, as well as to the whole national grape industry.

Masafumi Yagi

Principal scientist at the Division of Vegetable and Flower Breeding Technology Research, Institute of Vegetable and Floriculture Science, NARO, Japan. His research focuses on the development of breeding technology based on the genomic information for ornamental plants.

Kenichi Shibuya

Deputy Leader in Institute of Vegetable and Floriculture Science at National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), Japan. His research mainly focuses on flower senescence and post-harvest technology of ornamental plants. In recent years, he has been working on the molecular mechanisms of petal senescence and developing new techniques for extending flower longevity.

Junping Gao

Professor in the College of Horticulture at the China Agricultural University, China. His main research interests are focused on: (1) Elucidation of the physiological mechanisms underlying postharvest quality deterioration of cut flowers, (2) Functional characterization of the rosa genome and the important genes controlling agronomically and economically valuable traits, and (3) Design and development of novel technologies to improve the yield and quality of cut flowers and reduce the post-harvest losses.

Sukhvinder Pal Singh

Dr Sukhvinder Pal (SP) Singh is a Senior Research Scientist and Institute Director at the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, Sydney, Australia. His research group studies the sources and routes of microbial contamination in primary production and postharvest environments of fresh horticultural produce and translates this knowledge into industry practice. He champions the adoption of science- and evidence-based standards and best practice in mitigating food safety risks to consumers and industry. His collaborative network extends internationally with a variety of organisations including universities, government agencies, regulators and industry. Dr Singh actively contributes to the profession through his roles as the Vice-Chair of Postharvest and QA Division at the International Society for Horticultural Science and as a Director of the Australian Society of Horticultural Science. He serves on the executive committee of the Australian Association of Food Protection. He also holds the Adjunct Associate Professor position at the University of Newcastle.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sukhvinder-pal-sp-singh-62b74145/

Pramod V. Mahajan

Dr. Pramod V. Mahajan is a Senior Scientist and Group Leader at the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB) in Potsdam, Germany. His research focuses on postharvest technology, particularly controlled and modified atmosphere research for fresh produce. Dr. Mahajan earned his Ph.D. in Post Harvest and Food Engineering from the IIT Kharagpur (India), in 2002. He has held academic and research positions globally, including at University College Cork in Ireland. Over the years, Dr. Mahajan has significantly contributed to the field of postharvest technology. At ATB, Dr. Mahajan leads the Packaging & Storage Working Group, focusing on sustainable packaging solutions, mathematical modelling and sensor development for monitoring fresh produce.

Eriko Yasunaga

Associate professor in the Postharvest Engineering Laboratory, Faculty of Agriculture, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. My research interests include quality prediction and safety assessment of agricultural products during distribution in Japan and abroad, and optimization of the distribution environment.

Yasuo Suzuki

Professor of Meijo University. He specializes in postharvest technology research, focusing particularly on the development of sustainable (energy-efficient and low-cost) storage technologies. His research aims to suppress senescence in horticultural crops stored at ambient or mildly low temperatures by utilizing abiotic stress such as ethanol treatment and temporary high-temperature treatment. He also conducts basic research to elucidate the mechanisms of quality preservation from a horticultural physiological and biochemical perspective, investigating ethylene, metabolism of internal composition, and genes and transcription factors related to senescence and ripening.

Kietsuda Luengwilai

Associate Professor in the Department of Horticulture at Kasetsart University, Kamphaeng Saen Campus, Thailand. Research primarily focuses on the postharvest biology of tropical horticultural crops, with an emphasis on elucidating chilling injury, internal browning, water core disorder, carbohydrate metabolism, carotenoid metabolism, and volatile biosynthesis. Key crops of interest include durian, aromatic young coconut, pineapple, tomato, papaya, citrus, and holy basil.

Nobuko Mase

Senior Researcher in citrus breeding and production group working on the Division of Citrus Research, Institute of Fruit Tree and Tea Science, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO). In Citrus Research Station, Okitsu, she participates to the management of the largest collection of citrus genetic resources in Japan. Her research experience is mainly on mutation bleeding on fruit trees, particularly in genetic studies of self-compatible mutants of Japanese pear.

Lucia Lohmann

coming soon !

Qu Dongyu

Dr. Qu Dongyu studied Horticultural Sciences at Hunan Agricultural University, earned a master’s degree in Plant Breeding and Genetics from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) in 1986, and completed a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at Wageningen Agricultural University in 1996. Since 1986, he has been associated with CAAS, where he served as Vice President from 2001 to 2008. From 2008 to 2015, Dr. Qu was Assistant Governor and Vice Governor of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. In 2015, he was appointed Vice Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

Dr. Qu assumed office on 1 August 2019 as the ninth Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and was re-elected for a second four-year term on 2 July 2023. During his first term, he led transformative reforms to enhance the organization’s business model, increasing efficiency and implementing best practices to improve program and administrative effectiveness. He also launched six core initiatives: the flagship Hand-in-Hand Initiative, the 1000-Digital Villages Initiative, the One Country One Priority Product Initiative, the Green Cities Initiative, the One Health Approach, and the Blue Transformation Initiative. These initiatives have delivered significant achievements on the ground.

Dr. Qu has strongly advocated transforming agrifood systems to make them more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable. He promotes the “Four Betters”: better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind with the ultimate goal of helping Members achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Kaori Komatsu

Kaori Komatsu is a professor at Hokkai-Gakuen University in Sapporo, Japan and an ecological anthropologist specializing in the study of food and livelihoods from a cultural perspective. Her research topics include a comparative study of banana farming cultures, shifting cultivation and food culture in the Central African rainforest, and a cultural study of a local market in Okinawa, Japan. She primarily focuses on cooking bananas, exploring the cultural significance of cultivar diversity, the links between cooking methods and food selection, and the role of local markets in food sovereignty.
She has conducted fieldwork in Cameroon, Uganda, Ghana, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Okinawa, Japan. She is the author of Bananas Run Across the World: Anthropology of Agriculture and Food (2022, in Japanese) and Ethnography of the Local Market in Okinawa (2007, in Japanese). She is also the co-editor of History of Food and Agriculture in Africa(2016, in Japanese) and has published papers such as “Biodiversity of Intercropped Fields in Central African Rainforests” in African Study Monographs, Supplementary Issue 43 (2012).

Gabriel Sachter

coming soon !

Bhimu S. Patil

Dr. Bhimu Patil, a Regents Professor and Inaugural Leonard Pike University Professor at Texas A&M University, is renowned for his influential work as Director of the Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center and USDA National Center of Excellence for Melons. Additionally, he holds the esteemed position of Love Tito’s Endowed Professor at Texas A&M University. With over 258 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Patil’s research is at the forefront of understanding the comprehensive impacts of bioactives, specifically polyphenols, limonoids and carotenoids, from fruits and vegetables on human health.
His pioneering work spans the integration of plant breeding, agronomic practices, and harvesting methods, emphasizing the crucial role of quality, food safety, and consumption in enhancing health benefits. Dr. Patil has significantly advanced the ‘Foods for Health’ concept, integrating diverse methodologies to improve the overall quality and health benefits of fruits and vegetables.
Dr. Patil’s leadership has been instrumental in securing substantial funding, including $34.9 million and $20.6 million grants for his program, with notable projects related to melons and tomatoes under USDA-SCRI-CAPS. He has delivered over 120 invited presentations globally, including 29 keynote addresses at prestigious conferences in countries such as Australia, Brazil, China, Canada, France, Italy, India, New Zealand, Romania, Czech Republic, many others.
Throughout his distinguished career, Dr. Patil has received 19 prestigious awards, including six “”Fellow”” recognitions from professional societies such as the American Chemical Society and the American Society for Horticultural Sciences. He co-founded the International Symposium on Fruit and Vegetable Health in 2005 and has chaired or co-chaired 25 symposia, reflecting his leadership and commitment to advancing horticultural science.
Dr. Patil’s work has been extensively featured in 135 articles and news media outlets, including BBC, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and NPR, cementing his reputation as a leading authority in the field. His contributions continue to drive innovation and excellence in both the scientific community and the produce industry, promoting a healthier future through enhanced understanding and utilization of fruits and vegetables.

Masakazu Yamada

He is an irrigation engineer. His research focuses on the development and utilization of water resources, especially participatory irrigation management and water-saving irrigation. He is also interested in community-based land management, the Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) value chain and its utilization, and vegetable cultivation in urban and peri-urban areas in West African countries such as Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Mali.

Eri Hayashi

Eri Hayashi serves as president of the Japan Plant Factory Association (JPFA), a nonprofit organization devoted to academic and business advancements in plant factory/controlled environment agriculture (CEA). Before joining the JPFA, Eri worked at a private research institute in Tokyo, specializing in technology advancement for global food production. She has been conducting international field research on plant factories/CEA since 2008. She has a keen interest in technological advances, including phenotyping, in plant factories. She received a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Horticulture, Chiba University. She is an Associate Member of the Science Council of Japan, and a Member of the Agricultural Academy of Japan.

Guido Santini

Guido Santini is an Officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), where he leads a workstream on resilient agri-food systems in city regions. His work focuses on advancing sustainable crop production in urban and peri-urban areas and strengthening short supply chains by enhancing rural-urban linkages. Guido is also a key member of the core team for FAO’s Green Cities Initiative, which promotes sustainable urban development through innovative food systems solutions. Guido holds an MSc in Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture from the University of Florence and the Technical University of Lisbon. With over 20 years of experience in international development (FAO, UNDP), he specializes in food systems, sustainable crop production, and natural resource management, working across Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Sayuri Teramoto

Sayuri Teramoto is a Project Associate Professor in the COI-Next Project at the University of the Ryukyus. With a background in horticulture, agronomy research, and technical extension, she is currently responsible for the development and field implementation of brackish water aquaponics technology within the project. Her research focuses on securing local food production through carbon and water circulation, utilizing plant genetic resources, locally available organic waste, and microbe-based ecosystems.

Yasuhiko Koike

He is a professor of floriculture and ornamentals. His major research interests are urban horticulture, and the utilization of organic matter, plant residues for cut flowers, pot flowers and garden flowers. My background is closely related to the field of production, application of ornamentals for our life.

Eiji Goto

Dr. Eiji Goto is a professor at the Research Center for Space Agriculture and Horticulture, Chiba University.
From 2017 to 2019, he served as the chair of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Lunar Farm Working Group and published a report on Lunar Farming Concept Study Working Group 1st.
Since 2021, he has been involved as one of the subleaders on the research and development of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’(MAFF) Development of Advanced Resource-recycling Food Supply Systems to Support Long-term Lunar Stays Among Other Uses, a strategy project.
His research themes include the development of vertical farms for lunar bases, measurement and simulation of energy and material balances in vertical farms, hydroponics using recycled liquid fertilizer and the development of crop cultivation technologies that achieve space, resource, and energy savings. He is also working on research into low-pressure crop cultivation under hypobaric conditions (20 – 50 kPa of total pressures).

Leo Marcelis

Prof Dr Leo Marcelis is head of the chair group Horticulture and Product Physiology at Wageningen University, The Netherlands. This group holds a strong position in research and education on vertical farming, greenhouse horticulture and post-harvest quality
His research focuses on sustainable production of high quality products in vertical farms and greenhouses; Leo has a strong background in plant physiology, crop monitoring, computational modelling and experimentation. He has extensively studied the physiology, growth and development of plants in order to improve sustainability and quality of crop production in greenhouses and vertical farms. In particular fluxes of assimilates, water and nutrients in the plant, sink/source interactions and partitioning among plant organs in response to abiotic constraints are subject of study. LED lighting is a major theme in his research. At the moment he is leading large multidisciplinary research programmes on vertical farming and on LED lighting in greenhouses in which universities and private companies cooperate.

Naoya Fukuda

President of the Hydroponic Society of Japan (2024 – current), a nonprofit organization for extending academic knowledges on hydroponics and greenhouse technologies. Research fellow for Science and Technology Policy, Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, Cabinet Office in Japan (2014 – 2016). He is currently working at University of Tsukuba in Japan, professor in Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences (2020 – current), director of Tsukuba Plant Innovation Research Center (2022 – current).
His research has focused on environmental regulation for sustainable and highly efficient production of vegetable crops in a greenhouse and plant factory system, including artificial lighting technologies such LEDs, soilless culture, crop monitoring by digital technologies. Furthermore, he is also interested in physiological responses of vegetable and ornamental crops under abiotic stress condition, including salinity stress and light environments, for improving the product qualities in a greenhouse and plant factory.

Qichang Yang

Professor Qichang Yang is the Chief Scientist at the Institute of Urban Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (IUA, CAAS), and an Academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences (IEAS). He is also the Director of the Key Laboratory of Intelligent Horticultural Equipment, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, China, and the Director of the Belt and Road Agricultural Joint Laboratory of China-Romania.
Professor Yang earned his Ph.D. in Bio-Environment Engineering from China Agricultural University in 1996. He has held international research positions, including as a visiting scholar at Wageningen University (2005–2006) and a senior visiting scholar at the University of Arizona (2013–2014).
His research focuses on vertical farming systems, greenhouse engineering, and LED lighting in horticulture. As Chief Scientist, he has led national research on intelligent plant factory production technology as part of China’s National High Science & Technology Program. He has participated in over 40 national projects on energy-saving technologies for greenhouses and plant factories, publishing over 270 papers, with 106 indexed in SCI, and authored nine monographs.
Professor Yang’s achievements include several national honors such as the National Science & Technology Progress Prize (2009, 2017), Special Government Allowance (2010), and National Gold Medal of Patent (2011).
He plays a key role in international academic collaboration, serving as Chair of the ISHS Working Group on Design and Automation in Integrated Indoor Production Systems and as the Convenor for GreenSys 2017 and VertiFarm 2023.

Eiji Goto

Dr. Eiji Goto is a professor at Graduate School of Horticulture, Chiba University, Japan and professor of Research Center for Space Agriculture and Horticulture, Chiba University. He received a Ph.D. in agricultural engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan. He worked as an assistant professor and associate professor at the University of Tokyo and moved to Chiba University. He was the first researcher in the world to receive a Ph.D. in the research on plant factory with artificial light (PFAL).
His major research topics are plant factories and smart greenhouses. His broad areas of expertise include environmental engineering, plant growth control, plant modeling, environment simulation, plant physiology, photobiology, and plant secondary metabolism.
He has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers and has received academic awards from four academic societies, three paper awards, and one Health, Labor and Welfare Minister’s Award. He is now a Member of the Science Council of Japan.

Maria Claudia Dussi

Professor of Agroecology and temperate fruit physiology and culture at the National University of Comahue, Patagonia, Argentina.
She leads a study group in sustainability of agroecosystems (GESAF) in which she does research and extension, and trains graduate students in indicators of sustainability, diversity, energy flux and efficiency, carbon footprint in agroecosystems and sustainable fruit tree management and culture. Her work is transdisciplinary, with a territorial perspective of food and gender systems.
Claudia did postgraduate studies at Oregon State University, USA, at the University of General Sarmiento and at the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina). Fulbright and Erasmus Mundus alumni. She has been a guest professor at the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa), Debrecen (Hungary), Washington State University (USA), the State University of Santa Catarina (Brazil), University of Bologna (Italy) and University of La Frontera (Chile). She is the Chair of the Commission Agroecology and organic farming systems (International Society for Horticultural Sciences), Board member of the Latin America Scientific Society of Agroecology (SOCLA), and Board of Directors of the Argentine Society of Agroecology (SAAE).

Zachary Lippman

Zach Lippman is a Professor of Plant Biology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. His group studies flower and fruit production in nature and agriculture, focusing on tomato and related crops and their wild ancestors in the nightshade family. Taking advantage of natural and engineered genetic diversity, Lippman’s research has revealed how variation in the genes that control the proliferation and maturation of stem cells underlie diversity in vegetative and reproductive shoot systems. These findings have led to fundamental questions on how variation in the sequences that control both the activity and functions of genes, and also how these mutations interact, influence the development, domestication, and breeding of crops. Based on these discoveries, Lippman is bringing new tools, approaches, and principles to improve predictability in crop engineering. His contributions to plant biology and agriculture were recognized with a MacArthur Fellowship, the National Academy of Sciences Award in Food and Agriculture, and election to the National Academy of Sciences.

Sachiko Isobe

Sachiko Isobe started her career as a conventional red clover breeder in 1997. She earned her PhD from the United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Kagoshima University, in 2006. From 2007 to 2024, she worked at the Kazusa DNA Research Institute, focusing on plant molecular genetics and genomics. Her research included de novo whole genome sequencing, molecular genetics, database construction, and digital phenotyping for plants. Additionally, she led the Lab of Plant DNA Analysis, which provided contract-based services such as genome analysis of cultivated plants and related microorganisms, and the development of practical technologies for their analysis.

In July 2024, Dr. Isobe took on a new role as a professor at the Laboratory of Horticultural Science, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo. Here, she continues her work in genome analysis, specifically focusing on horticultural crops. Her extensive experience and contributions to plant molecular genetics and genomics have established her as a leading figure in the field, driving forward the understanding and practical applications of plant genome research.

Byoung-Cheorl Kang

Byoung-Cheorl Kang is a professor at Seoul National University, holding positions in the Department of Agriculture, Forestry, and Bioresources, and the Vegetable Research Center. He earned his MSc (1990) and Ph.D. (1999) from Seoul National University. From 2000 to 2003, he served as a Post-doctoral Fellow, and from 2003 to 2005, as a Research Associate at Cornell University, USA. His research focuses on developing genetic resources for molecular breeding of vegetable crops, with a particular emphasis on the genus Capsicum. A key research area in his lab is the identification of genes that regulate disease resistance and secondary metabolite biosynthesis in peppers, utilizing various genomic tools and gene editing. Professor Kang has published over 160 peer-reviewed papers in international journals, including Plant Biotechnology Journal, and Plant Journal.

Rie Miyaura

Professor of Agroecology and Sustainable Agri-Food Systems at the Faculty of International Agriculture and Food Studies, Tokyo University of Agriculture. She was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she conducted research in agroecology. She is one of the supervising translators of the textbook Agroecology by Dr. S. Gliessman and has played a key role in introducing agroecology to Japan. Her research examines the ecological and cultural dimensions of agricultural practices and farming systems, with particular emphasis on the role of traditional knowledge and sustainable innovations—including organic farming—in fostering resilient food systems in Southeast Asia and Japan. Her academic interests include exploring human–weed relationships, focusing on local perceptions of weeds and the multifunctional use of ruderal plants in agroecosystems—not only as agricultural resources, but also as food, animal feed, medicinal plants, and materials for art and culture. Her work seeks to integrate scientific research with practical application, bridging the connections between farms and foods, soil and plants, and promoting a holistic approach to global food sustainability.

Rachel Benzer Kerr

Professor in Global Development at Cornell University, and does research in Africa on agroecology, gender, climate change adaptation, food security and nutrition. She was a Coordinating Lead Author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability (Chapter 5). Dr. Bezner Kerr also served as a member of the High Level Panel of Experts for the United Nations Committee for World Food Security, coauthoring the 2019 report on agroecology.

Min-Hsiung Pan

Prof. Min-Hsiung Pan completed his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the College of Medicine, National Taiwan University (1996–2000). He is currently a Distinguished Professor at the Institute of Food Science and Technology, National Taiwan University. The primary research focus of his laboratory is to understand the molecular mechanisms through which natural dietary compounds influence human diseases and carcinogenesis. He has published over 350 journal articles. His current research interests include the discovery and development of novel nutraceuticals that can be used in functional foods and dietary supplements to prevent chronic diseases such as cancer, inflammatory conditions, epigenetic dysregulation, liver fibrosis, and obesity. Prof. Pan has received numerous awards for his outstanding research contributions, including two Outstanding Research Awards from the Ministry of Science and Technology (2011, 2018) and the Ta-You Wu Memorial Award from the National Science Council in 2007 for the implementation of special research projects. In addition, he was named one of the 46th Ten Outstanding Young People the following year. He was recognized as a Fellow of the American Chemical Society in 2014 and a Fellow of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology (IAFoST) in 2024. He also received the Outstanding Research Award from the Taiwan Association for Food Science and Technology in 2018 and the Outstanding Basic Research Award for Cancer Medicine from Dr. Da-Cheng Tung in 2020. Professor Pan is widely recognized for his significant contributions to the academic field. He currently serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Christine Morand

Dr Christine Morand studied Biochemistry and Cellular Biology and she received her PhD at the Blaise Pascal University in Clermont-Ferrand, France. She is full research director at INRAe, the French National institute for research on agriculture, food and environment.
She is working in the INRAe-Human Nutrition Unit of Clermont-Ferrand, where she leads a research group focusing on plant food bioactives and vascular health.
She has a long lasting experience in the field of Nutrition & Health, focusing her research on dietary polyphenols, their bioavailability, metabolism and their role of in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases (from clinical to mechanistic studies). Over the last years she has expressed a special interest for a better understanding of the interindividual variability in response to the consumption of plant food bioactives (coordination of the European scientific network COST-POSITIVe). Currently, she is the Chief Editor of the journal Food and Function (Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, UK).

Kentaro Matsumiya

Kentaro Matsumiya is an Associate Professor at Division of Food Science and Biotechnology, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Japan. He experienced a Visiting Research Fellow at School of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Leeds, UK from 2014 to 2015. He is currently serving as an Associate Editor of the “Food Structure” journal. His research has focused on food colloids and food structure mainly in the context of its palatability. He has dealt with processing and storage of food made from soybean, rice, wheat, milk and egg. He recently received Incentive Award from The Japanese Society for Food Science and Technology in 2020 for utilization of microgels in food emulsions and foams.

Kaeko Murota

Kaeko Murota graduated from Faculty of Agriculture, Kyoto University in 1993, and received a Ph.D degree in Agriculture from Kyoto University in 2001. After working as Assistant Professor at Tokushima University and Associate Professor at Kindai University, she got a position of full professor at Shimane University since 2018. Her research interest is the bioavailability of dietary polyphenols and their interaction with dietary lipids. In 2019, she received JSBBA Research Award for Woman Scientists by Japan Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology and Agrochemistry, for her recent research on “Structural characterization of dietary flavonoids involved in their bioavailability and identification of their in vivo metabolites.” Recently, she has been working on the effective utilization of agricultural wastes from local products as well as the evaluation of reagional specialty agricultural products. Prof. Murota is the president of Japanese Society for Food Factors (JSoFF) since 2024, and will organize the 9th International Conference on Food Factors (ICoFF) in 2026 in Japan.

Mariusz Konrad Piskula

“Profesor Mariusz Piskuła is working for the InLife – Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, specializing in food science and technology. Low molecular antioxidants of plant origin hold a strong position among phytochemicals of interest as well food processing modification aimed at preserving phytochemicals beneficial to health with focus on coloured vegetables. Substantial part of scientific activity is linked to bioavailability studies of food polyphenols in animals and humans. Recent research is focused on flavonoids, anthocyanins and betalains as well transport of their metabolites through biological barriers and tissues accumulation, especially in human milk and in cerebrospinal fluid. His work continues to influence both academic research and the food industry, with a focus on improving human health through a better understanding of food compounds transformation during processing. Prof. Piskula’s expertise has earned him international recognition. He is member of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology as well of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Throughout his career, he has been involved in the global scientific community. He served on the Governing Council and currently on Nominations Committee of the International Union of Food Science and Technology.

Hiroyoshi Iwata

Spent childhood in Thailand and Indonesia. Graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture, The University of Tokyo, and obtained a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo. After conducting research at the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) on the integration of statistics, information science, and agriculture, appointed as an Associate Professor in the Laboratory of Biometry and Bioinformatics, The University of Tokyo, in 2010, and promoted to Professor in 2023. Currently engaged in research on enhancing breeding efficiency through the integration of genomic science and information science, strengthening plant-microbe interactions through breeding, and improving efficiency in agriculture and forestry using remote sensing.

Masao Watanabe

Prof. Masao Watanabe is a distinguished plant molecular geneticist and breeder, currently serving as a full Professor at the Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, in Sendai, Japan. He earned his Doctor of Agriculture degree from Tohoku University.

Prof. Watanabe’s academic career commenced at Tohoku University, where he held the position of Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Agriculture from April 1991 to November 1997. He then advanced to Associate Professor at Iwate University’s Faculty of Agriclture, serving from December 1997 to March 2005. In April 2005, he returned to Tohoku University as a full Professor in the Graduate School of Life Sciences, a position he continues to hold.

His research primarily focuses on plant molecular genetics and breeding, with significant contributions to the understanding of plant reproductive biology and self-incompatibility mechanisms. Prof. Watanabe has extensively studied the genetic and molecular bases of self-incompatibility in Brassica species, providing insights that are crucial for crop improvement and hybrid seed production.

Throughout his career, Prof. Watanabe has been prolific in his scholarly output, authoring over 145 publications that have collectively garnered more than 7,070 citations, reflecting the substantial impact of his work in the scientific community. His expertise encompasses plant genetics, molecular biology, and biotechnology, with a particular emphasis on the Brassicaceae family. Prof. Watanabe also understands the importance of nurturing the next generation of young researchers, and contributed to the spread of plant sciences in public through more than 1,400 outreach activities.

In addition to his research endeavors, Prof. Watanabe is an active member of several professional societies, including the Molecular Biology Society of Japan, the Japanese Society of Breeding, and the Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. His dedication to both research and education continues to advance the field of plant sciences, contributing to sustainable agricultural practices and crop improvement strategies.

Naoya Fukuda

Naoya Fukuda, PhD, serves as a Professor within the Institute of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Tsukuba, where his research focuses on the intricate interplay between horticulture and environmental control. His expertise is particularly pronounced in the study of light environments, hydroponics, and the application of artificial lighting in agricultural settings. His research initiatives are dedicated to advancing horticultural practices through innovative environmental manipulation. Notable projects include elucidating the mechanisms behind chlorogenic acid accumulation in lettuce seedlings via compound environmental treatments and developing lighting techniques to enhance chlorogenic acid content. His earlier work extensively explored the impact of light quality on horticultural crop growth and floral induction.Dr. Fukuda’s contributions have been recognized with the Agricultural Facilities Society Contribution Award in 2017. He is an active member of several prominent academic societies, including The Japanese Society for Horticultural Science, the Japanese Society of Farm Work Research, and The Society of Agricultural Structures, Japan. His research findings are disseminated through numerous publications, such as recent studies on the effects of LED lighting on lettuce growth and the enhancement of ginseng seedling yield through dense planting and environmental control, serves as a Professor within the Institute of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Tsukuba, where his research focuses on the intricate interplay between horticulture and environmental control. His expertise is particularly pronounced in the study of light environments, hydroponics, and the application of artificial lighting in agricultural settings.

Yasunaga Iwasaki

Dr.Yasunaga Iwasaki is a researcher and academic currently affiliated with Meiji University. His expertise lies in the field of agricultural science, with a specialized focus on horticulture, soil science, and plant nutrition. His research interests encompass a wide range of areas, including environmental control in horticulture, soilless culture, and the development of sustainable agricultural practices. 4 He has made significant contributions to the field through his extensive research and publications, which have been featured in numerous academic journals and conferences. Dr. Iwasaki’s work is characterized by its innovative approach and its commitment to advancing the field of agricultural science. He is a highly respected member of the academic community and is dedicated to educating and mentoring the next generation of agricultural scientists.

Silke Hemming

Dr. Silke Hemming is a senior scientist at Wageningen University & Research (WUR) specializing in greenhouse technology and controlled environment agriculture. With a focus on optimizing plant growth and resource efficiency, her research explores innovative lighting strategies, climate control systems, and sustainable cultivation practices. Dr. Hemming leads interdisciplinary projects aimed at developing cutting-edge solutions for the horticultural industry, addressing challenges related to food production, energy consumption, and environmental impact. Her expertise encompasses the integration of sensor technology, data analysis, and modeling to create intelligent growing systems. She is actively involved in international collaborations and knowledge dissemination, contributing to the advancement of sustainable horticulture worldwide. Dr. Hemming holds a PhD in Agricultural Engineering from WUR and has authored numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals and industry reports.

Hong-Hwa Chen

Chair Professor Hong-Hwa Chen graduated from the Department of Microbiology at Michigan State University, USA in 1991. She has been a faculty at National Cheng Kung University for more than 30 years teaching Cell Biology, Genomics, and Orchid Biotechnology since 1994. She has visited France, the United States, South Korea, and mainland China for short-term study visits several times. So far, she has published more than 60 academic journal articles with high-impact factors, 14 book chapters, 11 domestic and USA patents, and 2 technology transfers, and edited and published 4 Orchid Biotechnology books from volumes I to IV via World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore. In addition, she has completed the whole genome sequence of Phalaenopsis equestris with international cooperation and published it in Nature Genetics in 2015. Her research focuses on the aesthetic traits of Phalaenopsis orchids, including floral color, floral scent as well as disease resistance against Fusarium pathogens. She has been invited as the keynote speaker sharing floral scent biology in 3 international conferences, including the 2018 European Orchid Conference in Paris, France; the 2018 International Symposium on Evolutionary Genomics and Bioinformatics, Taipei, Taiwan; and the 2017 From Fundamental Research to Medical Applications Symposium in Singapore.

Yazaki Kazufumi

Kazufumi Yazaki received his Ph.D. degree from the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Kyoto University under the supervision of Prof. M. Tabata (1988). He was appointed Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Okayama University in 1986. As an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow (1989-1991), he conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Bonn under Prof. E. Leistner, and then in the laboratory of Prof. K. Hahlbrock at the Max-Planck-Institute in Cologne, Germany. He moved to Kyoto University as an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences in 1992, and became an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Agriculture of Kyoto University in 1996. He was promoted to Professor in the Wood Research Institute in 2002, and the Institute was reorganized to become the Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere. He became Professor Emeritus of Kyoto University in 2024.
His research topics include (i) characterization of biosynthetic genes for plant secondary metabolites such as prenylated phenolics and volatile terpenoids, (ii) membrane transport of natural products in plant cells, (iii) biotechnological application of plant products in heterologous hosts. Recently, he has been interested in the conservation of the endangered medicinal plant ‘red gromwell’, which produces a red naphthoquinone pigment, shikoinin. This plant played a central role in traditional Japanese culture. He has authored and co-authored over 250 publications. He is currently president of the Japanese Society for Plant Biotechnology, a director of the Japan Bioindustry Association (JBA), and chairman of the JBA Plant Bioresearch Association.

Srinivasan Ramasamy

Srinivasan Ramasamy (India) received a PhD in Agricultural Entomology from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, India / Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center, Taiwan in 2003. Since 2005 he has led the Entomology Group at the World Vegetable Center. His professional interests include host-plant resistance, chemical ecology of insect pests, biological control, and molecular entomology. As a member of the WorldVeg Plant Protection and Breeding Team, he received the International Plant Protection Award of Distinction from the International Association for the Plant Protection Sciences. Dr. Srinivasan is an active member in professional societies / networks such as Royal Entomological Society, Society for Invertebrate Pathology, Entomological Society of America, International Association for the Plant Protection Sciences, New York Academy of Sciences, and International Society of Chemical Ecology. He has more than 60 peer-reviewed journal publications and book chapters, two field guides and a Conference Proceedings to his credit.

Bai Yuling

Prof. Yuling Bai is a distinguished scientist in plant breeding, currently serving as a Professor at Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in the Netherlands. She earned her PhD from Wageningen University, where she has developed a robust research portfolio focusing on plant-pathogen interactions and the genetic mechanisms underlying disease resistance in crops. Since September 2024, she is the interim Chair of Plant Breeding of WUR.

Throughout her career, Prof. Bai has made significant contributions to the field of plant breeding. Since 2007 she has been leading the research group of “Breeding for Resistance”, with the aim to develop breeding strategies for durable resistance in different crops. Various genetic and genomics approaches are exploited to discover novel plant resistance (R) and susceptibility (S) genes and to study their interaction with the corresponding pathogens. The strong point in her research is its translational feature: overarching strategically the fundamental research to applied breeding practices.

Prof. Bai has an extensive publication record, with over 200 research works that have collectively garnered nearly 9,000 citations, reflecting the impact and relevance of her work in the scientific community. Additionally, her studies have led to great impact in breeding practice by developing novel breeding strategies, tools and prebreeding plant materials.

In the European Association for Research on Plant Breeding (EUCARPIA) she serves as Scientific Secretary (elected in 2024) and the Chair of Section Vegetables (elected in 2012).

Prof. Bai’s dedication to plant science and her significant research contributions have established her as a leading figure in plant resistance breeding.

Pasquale Tripodi

Dr. Pasquale Tripodi is a distinguished plant geneticist and breeder, currently serving as Research Director at the Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Research Centre for Vegetable and Ornamental Crops in Pontecagnano, Italy. He earned his Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Genetics from the University of Naples, Faculty of Agriculture, where he specialized in genetic improvement and horticulture.

Dr. Tripodi’s research focuses on the breeding, genetics, and genomics of both fruity (pepper, tomato) and leafy vegetables (rocket salad). His work includes establishing breeding programs to develop advanced backcross inbred lines, introgression lines, multiparental populations, and core collections in vegetables. He investigates genetic regions underlying traits of agricultural interest through QTL mapping and genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Additionally, he employs various molecular and genomic approaches for population diversity studies and examines nutritionally important phytochemical compounds.

Throughout his career, Dr. Tripodi has been involved in numerous national and international research projects. Notably, he has contributed to the EU-Horizon 2020 projects such as G2P-SOL, Linking genetics resources, genomes and phenotypes of solanaceous crops INCREASE, focusing on intelligent collections of food-legume genetic resources for European agrofood systems, and BRESOV, aimed at breeding for resilient, efficient, and sustainable organic vegetable production.

In his role, Dr. Tripodi also serves as the Italian representative and chair of the Solanaceae Working Group of the European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources (ECPGR) and he is part of the Board of Directors of the Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics. He serves as an Associate Editor for journals such as Frontiers in Genetics, Molecular Horticulture and Plant Molecular Biology Reporter. His extensive publication record and editorial contributions underscore his commitment to advancing plant science and sustainable agriculture.

Masayoshi Shigyo

Prof. Masayoshi Shigyo is a distinguished professor in the College of Agriculture, Graduate School of Sciences and Technology for Innovation at Yamaguchi University, Japan, specializing in vegetable crop science. His research primarily focuses on developing high-efficiency and value-added production systems within plant factories, as well as breeding novel vegetable varieties that are resilient to the effects of global warming.

In addition to his research and teaching responsibilities, Prof. Shigyo plays a significant role in international horticultural communities. He serves as the chair of the Working Group on Edible Alliums within the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS), contributing to the advancement of knowledge and practices related to allium crops.

Prof. Shigyo is also actively involved in promoting international exchanges within the academic community. As one of the leaders responsible for fostering global collaborations in the Faculty of Agriculture at Yamaguchi University, he facilitates research partnerships and academic exchanges that enhance the university’s global engagement.

Through his extensive research, leadership roles, and commitment to education, Prof. Shigyo significantly contributes to the fields of horticultural science and sustainable agriculture, addressing contemporary challenges such as climate change and food security.

Ferdinando Branca

Dr. Ferdinando Branca is a Professor at the Department of Agriculture, Food, and Environment (Di3A) at the University of Catania, Italy. He earned his Ph.D. in Crop Productivity in 1991 and has been with the University of Catania since 1992.

Prof. Branca’s research focuses on the diversification and innovation of vegetable production. He has extensively studied the bio-morphological variations, primary and secondary metabolites, and genetic profiles of landraces and wild relatives, particularly within the Brassicaceae family. His work includes the collection, conservation, and evaluation of both wild and cultivated vegetable species, with a special emphasis on Italian germplasm of cauliflower, broccoli, kale, and kohlrabi. He has assessed these landraces for their morphological, agronomic, nutraceutical, and organoleptic traits, as well as their adaptability to various environmental conditions.

In addition to his research, Prof. Branca has played a significant role in several international projects. He is the coordinator of the Horizon 2020 BRESOV project, which focuses on breeding for resilient, efficient, and sustainable organic vegetable production. He also serves as the Italian representative and he chaired of the Brassica Working Group of the European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources (ECPGR) from 1997 to 2024. From 2014 to 2016, he was the vice-chair of the “”Vegetables, Roots, Tubers, Edible Bulbs, Brassica, Asparagus”” section of the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS), and he assumed the role of chair from 2016 to 2018. He is chair of the ISHS Division “”Vegetables, Bulbs and Tubers”” from 2022 upto now.

Prof. Branca has authored over 200 scientific papers related to the exploitation of wild and cultivated germplasm used as vegetables and medicinal plants, aiming to enhance and to innovate their productions and the related vegetable supply chains. His extensive work has significantly contributed to the fields of horticulture and plant genetic resources, particularly concerning the Brassicaceae family.

Hikaru Tsukazaki

Dr. Hikaru Tsukazaki is a prominent researcher specializing in vegetable crop science, currently serving as the Manager of the Division of Field Cropping and Horticulture Research at the Tohoku Agricultural Research Center, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), Japan. He also holds a position at The United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Iwate University, since April 2018.
Dr. Tsukazaki’s research primarily focuses on the genetic improvement and cultivation techniques of Allium species, particularly onions and bunching onions (Allium fistulosum). His work includes quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis for traits such as bolting time and pseudostem pungency in bunching onions, as well as the development of simple sequence repeat (SSR)-based chromosome maps to facilitate marker-assisted selection in breeding programs.
Throughout his career, Dr. Tsukazaki has contributed significantly to the scientific community with over 50 publications, accumulating more than 1,200 citations. His research has provided valuable insights into the genetic mechanisms underlying key agronomic traits in Allium species, aiding in the development of improved cultivars with desirable characteristics such as disease resistance and enhanced nutritional profiles.
In his current role at NARO, Dr. Tsukazaki leads research initiatives aimed at developing sustainable and efficient production systems for vegetables in cold regions, including the Tohoku area. His team focuses on building onion production systems that enable continuous shipment, utilizing information and communication technology (ICT) to create data-driven production management systems based on growth and yield predictions. Additionally, they work on controlling pests and diseases to support cultivation in production areas and develop varieties of wheat and vegetables suitable for processing and actual demand by employing smart breeding technologies.
Dr. Tsukazaki’s dedication to advancing vegetable crop science and his leadership in research and development have significantly contributed to the improvement of agricultural practices and crop varieties in Japan, particularly in regions facing unique climatic challenges.

Sanjay Kumar Singh

Prof. Sanjay Kumar Singh is the Deputy Director General (Horticultural Science) at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and former Director of the ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru. He earned his B.Sc. (Ag.), M.Sc., and Ph.D. in Horticulture from the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, with Gold Medal distinctions. He completed his postdoctoral research under the DBT Overseas Fellowship at the University of Florida, USA (2008-09), focusing on tropical fruit biotechnology.

Joining ICAR-IARI, New Delhi, as an ARS Scientist in 1994, Dr. Singh became the first Professor of Fruit Science (2013-2016). He currently serves as Vice President of the Indian Academy of Horticultural Sciences and President of the Society for Promotion of Horticulture, Bengaluru. He was Editor and Editor-in-Chief of the Indian Journal of Horticulture (2009-2019).

Dr. Singh has developed improved varieties of grape (Pusa Aditi, Pusa Trishar), mango (Pusa Deepshikha), and guava (Pusa Prateeksha), along with commercial protocols for micropropagation and bio-hardening in crops like mango, grape, citrus, and pomegranate. His research interests include fruit breeding and applying transcriptomics and functional genomics in fruit crops.

He has guided 9 M.Sc. and 18 Ph.D. students and published over 300 research papers, 13 books, and numerous book chapters and articles. Dr. Singh is a Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences and several other prestigious societies and has received multiple awards, including the ICAR’s Bharat Ratna Dr. C. Subramanium Best Teacher Award (2018) and several Lifetime Achievement Awards

Keiske Nonaka

Dr. Keisuke Nonaka is the group leader of the Citrus Research Division at NARO. He received his master’s degree at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in 2002 and his PhD in 2005. He has been engaged in citrus breeding at NARO from 2006 and has been leading NARO’s citrus breeding program since 2019.
He is engaged in developing new citrus varieties that are rich in functional components, easy to eat, and high fruit quality through citrus hybrid breeding. To date, he has developed six protected citrus varieties. Notably, he developed an efficient breeding method for varieties with high β-cryptoxanthin content, a type of carotenoid with health benefits. Recently, his research has focused on implementing data-driven breeding methods, such as genomic selection and genome-wide prediction, into the citrus breeding program. Additionally, one of the main topics of his research has been focus on developing aplatform to efficiently incorporate promising traits, such as disease resistance, from germplasms into economically viable cultivars.
He has been a member of both the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) and the Japanese Society for Horticultural Science (JSHS) for over 10 years. He has participated in many different research projects. He has published over 20 peer-reviewed papers and has received the JSHS’s Annual Outstanding Paper Award and the Japanese Society of Breeding’s Paper Award. Additionally, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the JSHS.

Satoru Kondo

Satoru Kondo is a researcher specializing in fruit tree science, with a particular focus on plant physiology and growth regulation. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Tsukuba, Japan. Over the course of his career, he has held positions at the Akita Fruit Tree Research Station, Hiroshima Prefectural University, and the Graduate School of Horticulture at Chiba University. In 2024, he joined the School of Agro-Industry at Mae Fah Luang University in Thailand. His contributions to the academic community include serving as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Japanese Society for Horticultural Science (2012–2014), Chair of the ISHS Symposium Plant Bioregulators in Fruit Production (2014–2017), and Editor-in-Chief of Scientia Horticulturae (2016–2023). He currently serves as an Associate Editor. Dr. Kondo has published approximately 200 research papers in his field, contributing significantly to the advancement of fruit tree science.

Naoto Kawakami

Dr. Kawakami graduated from Utsunomiya University in 1983 under the supervision of Dr. Naoki Yamamoto on the role of stored mRNA in light induced germination of black pine seeds. He obtained his PhD from Nagoya University in 1988 working under Dr. Akira Watanabe on gene expression during radish leaf senescence and discovered upregulation of cytoplasmic glutamine synthetase gene expression in relation to nitrate recovery from senescing leaves. He started to work as an assistant professor on wheat seed dormancy and pre-harvest sprouting at Kihara Institute for Biological Research, Yokohama City University in 1988. He worked with Dr. Kazuhiko Noda and reported importance of abscisic acid (ABA) metabolism and sensitivity for grain dormancy development and pre-harvest spouting resistance. He moved to Meiji University in 1997 and shifted his main work to seed response to temperature to understand molecular mechanism of seed dormancy and germination. His group has been taken molecular genetic and chemical genetic approaches with Arabidopsis and illuminating phytohormone regulation mechanism by internal dormancy and external temperature. Recently, his group elucidated molecular function of rice and wheat dormancy QTL genes in Arabidopsis in collaboration with breeding scientists. He has been a member of International Society for Seed Science and appointed as a regional representative of Japan from 2019. He chaired the 6th Plant Dormancy Symposium in 2018 at Kyoto and facilitated discussion between seed and bud dormancy researchers.

David Paul Horvath

Dr. Horvath graduated from Purdue University in 1984 after working under Dr. Jeff Bennetzen on screening for stress sensitive mutator lines. He obtained his PhD from Michigan State University in 1993 working under Dr. Mike Thomashow where he assisted in cloning and characterizing the first cold induced genes from plants. He then took a post-doc position with the USDA-ARS in Fargo ND working on identifying molecular markers associated with durable stem rust resistance working under Dr. Lynn Dahleen. He was then hired as a full-time scientist for the USDA-ARS where he spent the first 20 years of his career working on bud dormancy and stress tolerance in the perennial invasive weed leafy spurge and was one of the first two groups to clone and characterize DORMANCY ASSOCIATED MADS-BOX genes. He has since begun investigating freezing tolerance and deacclimation resistance in oilseed crops such as canola and camelina where he cloned the first gene shown to reduce the rate of deacclimation in canola and arabidopsis and to investigate the association between FLOWERING LOCUS C and freezing tolerance in camelina. He is also actively investigating crop-weed interactions using transcriptomics and mutation analyses and has helped develop a new paradigm for how weeds reduce crop yields in well-managed agricultural settings.

Nobuhiro Kotoda

Dr. Kotoda graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1993 under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Kenji Mori on organic synthesis of the pheromone of an insect. He obtained his MS from the University of Tokyo in 1996 working under Prof. Dr. Haruo Seto on screening of natural products that reduce glutamate neurotoxicity using neuro hybridoma cell lines and hippocampal primary cells of mice. He started to work as a researcher on apple breeding at the National Institute of Fruit Tree Science in Morioka, Iwate, in 1996. He then obtained his Ph.D from the University of Tokyo in 2005 under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Tadakatsu Yoneyama on flowering mechanism of apples. After 12 years of expertise of handling deciduous fruit trees such as apple, pear, cherry, blueberry, etc., he studied parthenocarpy and GA function of citrus for five years in Okitsu, Shizuoka. He also worked with Drs. Roger Hellens and Erika-Varkonyi Gasic on the flowering mechanism of fruit trees at Plant and Food Research in Auckland, New Zealand from 2009 to 2010. Since he moved to Saga University in 2013, he has studied physiology and genomics of citrus using a variety of citrus germplasms and wild species. Recently he is interested in natural products including health ingredients in tree fruits like citrus.

Erika Varkonyi-Gasic

Dr. Varkonyi-Gasic received her BSc and MSc degrees from the University of Belgrade, Serbia. As a research associate at the Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering in Belgrade, she contributed to the characterization of buckwheat seed storage proteins. She then moved to New Zealand in 1995 to study plant development and responses to environmental signals at AgResearch Grasslands, Palmerston North. Her study of a white clover early nodulin gene earned her a PhD from the University of Belgrade in 2001. Following this, she joined the biotechnology company Genesis Research and Development in Auckland, New Zealand, as a scientist investigating mobile RNAs and long-distance communication in plants. For the past 19 years, Dr. Varkonyi-Gasic has worked at Plant & Food Research and its predecessor, HortResearch, studying the developmental and environmental regulation of vegetative and reproductive phenology in horticultural species. Her current research applies biotechnology to accelerate the breeding of woody perennials, including apple and kiwifruit. Under her leadership, gene editing in kiwifruit was successfully established, paving the way for the development of climate-resilient plants.

Kazuyoshi Nada

Dr. Kazuyoshi Nada is a professor at Mie University, Japan (https://www.bio.mie-u.ac.jp/en/). He served as an editor or a senior editor of the vegetable section for the Horticulture Journal from 2016 to 2025. Additionally, he was as a managing editor of Horticultural Research (Japan) from 2010 to 2013 and a member of the symposium committee for the JSHS from 2014 to 2016. At IHC2026, he is a member of the publication committee.
Dr. Nada is a plant physiologist specializing in vegetables, researching the adaptability of photosynthesis and nitrogen metabolism reactions under environmental stress. He has focused on elucidating the mechanisms of heat tolerance in photosynthesis and pollen fertility in fruit vegetables, as well as analyzing amino acid absorption characteristics in leafy vegetables. In recent years, he has studied the effect of high -concentration potassium application on improving the quality of fruit and leafy vegetables. He found that high -concentration potassium treatment increases the lycopene concentration in tomato fruit and the chlorophyll and β-carotene concentrations in oilseed rape leaves. These findings will be introduced as one of the themes of the symposium at GreenVegs2026.

Sota Fujii

Professor
Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences
The University of Tokyo

Sota Fujii completed his PhD at Tohoku University in 2009. After holding postdoctoral positions at the University of Western Australia and Kyoto University, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology. In 2017, he joined the Department of Applied Biological Chemistry at the University of Tokyo, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2020 and Full Professor in 2025. His research primarily focuses on the molecular mechanisms governing plant sexual reproduction, including pioneering discoveries of the key interspecific reproductive barrier factors SPRI1 and SPRI2 in Arabidopsis. He also investigates the fundamental molecular mechanisms of pollen-pistil interactions and self-incompatibility across diverse plant species.

Recent Representative Awards:
2020, The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Young Scientists’ Prize
2023, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Prize
2024, Japan Academy Medal
2024, Bioindustry Young Investigator Award
2025, The Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists Young Investigator Awards

Ray Ming

Professor

Ray Ming began his working in plant genomics at the University of Hawaii, where he received his PhD degree in 1995. After completing a post-doctoral research associate position in sugarcane genome mapping at Texas A&M University, he joined the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center (HARC) in 1998, focusing on tropical plant genomics including papaya, pineapple, and sugarcane. During his time at HARC, his team discovered recently evolved sex chromosomes in papaya, which led to sex chromosome evolution and sex determination becoming a major focus of his research. In 2005, he joined the faculty of plant biology at the University of Illinois at Urbane-Champaign (UIUC). From 2013 to 2017, he served as the director of Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (FAFU) and UIUC School of Integrative Biology (SIB) Joint Center for Genomics and Biotechnology. In 2023, he returned to FAFU as the director of the Center for Genomics and Biotechnology while remaining as a professor emeritus at UIUC.
His research interests include sex chromosome evolution and its relevance on crop improvement in papaya, the origin and evolution of CAM photosynthesis and clonally propagated crops, and genome features contributing to high sugar content and biomass yield in sugarcane. He has published more than 280 peer-reviewed journal articles, which have been cited more than 30,000 times, with an H-index of 76.

Tom Bennett

Tom Bennett has been a group leader at the University of Leeds since 2016. His research focuses on the mechanisms that plants use to optimise the root and shoot growth with respect to prevailing environmental conditions. One key focus of his research is understanding how end-of-flowering and total reproductive effort are coordinated by resource availability and environmental signals. He did his PhD at the University of York (2002-2006) working with Dame Professor Ottoline Leyser, before undertaking post-doctoral research at the University of Utrecht (2007-2010) and University of Cambridge (2010-2016).

Masahiro Kanaoka

Dr. Masahiro Kanaoka got Ph. D. at Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, for genetic and developmental biology of pollen grains in 2006. After post-doc work of stomatal development at Department of biology, University of Washington, he had been working as an Assistant Professor and a tenured Lecturer at Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University. Since 2022, he has been a Professor at Department of Life Science, Prefectural University of Hiroshima.
He has been working on plant developmental and reproductive biology, especially male-female interactions including pollen tube guidance mechanism, since Nagoya University. His recent works are the finding of novel pollen tube guidance molecule from Torenia, the fabrication of microfluidic devices for in vitro pollen tube assay, the finding of novel genes for pollen-stigma adhesion. He has recently been interested in duckweed species as a new sustainable source of protein and vitamins for human consumption.

Hisayo Yamane

Hisayo Yamane is a professor at the Laboratory of Pomology, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University. Her research focuses on the reproduction biology of fruit trees and phenology characteristics (winter bud dormancy and fruit ripening) of temperate fruit trees especially Rosaceae fruit trees and blueberry. One key focus of her research is understanding genetic and epigenetic regulations on bud dormancy and chilling requirement for dormancy release and bud break. She received her PhD at the Kyoto University (2003) and stayed at Cornell University as postdoc (2003-2004), working with Prof. Jocelyn Rose and studied about Prunus self-incompatibility.

Avi Sadka

Dr. Avi Sadka has been a senior research scientist at the Agricultural Research Organization, The Volcani Institute, since 1995, and also serves as an adjunct professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As a plant physiologist specializing in citrus and other fruit trees, his research focuses on various aspects of plant growth, development, and responses to external stimuli.
His recent studies investigate the regulation of alternate bearing in fruit trees—a phenomenon where a heavy fruit load in one year suppresses flowering in the following year, leading to significant multi-annual yield fluctuations. By integrating physiological, molecular, and genomic approaches, his research team has developed a model explaining how fruit load status is signaled to the bud, thereby influencing its flowering potential. The validity of this model has been demonstrated in citrus, avocado, and olive trees.

Simone Diego Castellarin

Simone Diego Castellarin is a Professor and the co-Director of the Wine Research Centre at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He has received his Ph.D. (2007) in Agricultural Science and Biotechnology from the University of Udine, Italy. His research focuses on viticulture and grapevine physiology. Particularly, it considers the physiological and molecular aspects that underlay ripening and the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites in grapes, and how they are modulated by the environment and viticultural practices. Prof. Castellarin’s laboratory currently uses a multidisciplinary approach that combines field and greenhouse experiments, and targeted and untargeted analyses of metabolites and transcripts. The laboratory has a robust partnership with top scientists in the field of viticulture, grapevine physiology, and applied genomics in North America and Europe. His research is shaped by his agriculture-oriented background and considers those aspects of grapevine physiology that are relevant for improving fruit quality in vineyards.

Jinggui Fang

Jinggui Fang works as a professor and the director of the Fruit Crop Variety Promotion and Seedling Propagation Engineering Center of Jiangsu Province in Nanjing Agricultural University, China. His research mainly focuses on evaluation of grape genetic resources, development of genotype identification strategies using DNA markers, grape genomics, genetics and breeding, grape development biology, the formation mechanism of some phenotypic and inner quality traits, such as skin color, berry shape and sugar etc. He also engaged in much extension job to the management practice both of table and wine grape vineyards.

Giovanni Battista Tornielli

Giovanni Battista Tornielli is a Full Professor of Viticulture at the University of Padua (Italy). He graduated in Agricultural Sciences at the University of Padua, and obtained his PhD in 1999. Until 2002, he carried out post-doctoral research in agricultural genetics at the University of Verona, and as a visiting scientist at the Vrije University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands). In 2018, he became an Associate Professor of General Arboriculture and Tree Crops at the University of Verona, and in 2023 he moved to the University of Padua as a Full Professor in the same field. He teaches and has taught various courses in undergraduate, graduate, and PhD programs, mostly dedicated to the molecular biology, physiology, and cultivation of grapevines. His research activity covers the themes of grape ripening and postharvest withering physiology, with particular attention to the effects of environment and agronomic practices and the underlying molecular mechanisms. This research work is documented by a significant number of publications in high-impact international journals. Prof. Tornielli also serves/has served as an editor for leading journals, including Horticulture Research, Frontiers in Plant Science, and Horticulturae, contributing to the dissemination of innovative research in fruit tree physiology and molecular biology. He is a member of the Italian Academy of Vine and Wine.

Akifumi Azuma

Akifumi Azuma is a Principal Scientist at the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) in Japan. His main research fields are physiological and genetic aspects of grape cultivation. His research aims to enhance grape production through the development of climate-resilient grape varieties and the elucidation of anthocyanin biosynthesis in grape skins. His research focuses on the molecular genomics and genetics of anthocyanin biosynthesis in grape berry skin, breeding and cultivation of table grapes, and the impact of environmental factors on grape coloration. He has developed DNA markers for early selection of high-quality, heat-tolerant grape varieties and contributed to postharvest technologies for improving grape quality.

David Bryla

Dr. David Bryla is a research horticulturist and lead scientist with the USDA-ARS Horticultural Crops Production and Genetic Research Unit in Corvallis, Oregon, USA. Dr. Bryla graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a BS in Biology in 1987 and a MS in Ecology in 1989 and completed his PhD in Plant Biology at the University of California, Davis in 1994. He joined the USDA in 1999. Dr. Bryla has authored more than 150 scientific publications over his career and is recognized internationally for his research on water and nutrient management of horticultural crops. He compiled the most complete work to date on irrigation and fertigation of blueberries and other small fruits. He also led a team to identify temperature thresholds for heat damage in blueberries and is continuing to develop techniques for mitigating heat stress in the flowers and fruit. Dr. Bryla is a Fellow of the American Society for Horticultural Science and serves as assistant editor for HortScience and an associate editor for Irrigation Science and Frontiers in Plant Science.

Takeshi Kurokura

Associate professor of Horticulture at Utsunomiya University in Japan. He is a plant (molecular) physiologist whose main interest is the flowering mechanisms of the genus Fragaria, especially wild species, as well as the evolution of the genus.

Sarah M. Pilkington

Science Group Leader at Plant & Food Research in New Zealand. Research area began with a focus on sex determination in kiwifruit (Actinidia) and has expanded to oversee the group’s activity from molecular biology along the entire kiwifruit breeding pipeline.

Lisa Wasko DeVetter

Associate Professor of Horticulture at Washington State University in the United States. Program focus is small fruit crops in response to alternative management systems designed to optimize plant productivity, fruit quality, and on-farm efficiencies while maintaining the health of adjacent natural resources within a diversity of production systems. Crops of focus are caneberry (raspberry and blackberry), blueberry, strawberry.

Matthew Whiting

Dr. Whiting hails from Canada where he earned his M.Sc. studying Postharvest Physiology of apples at the University of Guelph. He received his Ph.D. from Washington State University in 2001 studying whole-canopy gas exchange and applied tree physiology of sweet cherry. Since 2002 Dr. Whiting has led a temperate tree fruit research, extension, and teaching program at Washington State University’s Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center. His program has addressed the key factors limiting sustainable production of superlative fruit including fruit set, pollination biology, artificial pollination, canopy source-sink relations, crop load management, and canopy architecture. Dr. Whiting has adopted a total systems approach to incorporating mechanization/automation in tree fruit by combining the development of compact fruiting wall architectures with collaborative research into mechanical harvest, pruning, and thinning systems. His team works in collaboration with commercial producers around the world to improve production efficiency and orchard sustainability.

Massimo Tagliavini

1991 PhD University of Bologna (Italy). 1998-2007 Associate professor at the University of Bologna. Professor at the Faculty of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Sciences, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (2007-now). Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (2008-2014). Vice-president of Eurac Research (2016-). President of the Italian Society of Horticultural Science (2016-2022). President of the Italian Association of the Scientific Agricultural Societies, AISSA (2020-2023). Chairman of the working group on “Mineral Nutrition of Fruit Crops” of the ISHS (2000-2005; 2012-2017). He leads the Tree ecophysiology and ecosystems group (https://treeecophysiology.unibz.it/) at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, where he also coordinates the PhD Program in Mountain Environment and Agriculture. His main research interests relate to the efficient resource use in agricultural systems and aim at providing basic knowledge to develop more sustainable production systems, with special focus on fruit trees and grapevine under the climate change scenarios. His research looks at the effects that plant physiological processes have at ecosystem scale and stretches from mineral nutrients to carbon and water fluxes. The research group activities integrate several techniques including micrometeorology, eco-physiological measurements, the use of stable isotopes, tree biometry and modelling. He has published more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and several international book chapters and papers in conference proceedings.

Takuya Tetsumura

Professor, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Miyazaki. received his Ph.D. in Agriculture from Kyoto University in 2001 and has been in his current position since April 2010. His research focuses on fruit science, especially clonal propagation. He specializes in persimmon (Diospyros kaki) research, especially dwarfing rootstocks, clonal plant propagation techniques including micropropagation and cutting propagation, and fruit tree biotechnology. His recent work includes the improvement of micropropagation protocols for the persimmon dwarfing rootstock ‘MKR1’ and its application to more efficient orchard management. He has received several awards for his research, including High Step Researcher (University of Miyazaki, 2019). He has also authored or co-authored numerous scientific papers and book chapters, including “Compendium of transgenic crop plants: Transgenic tropical and subtropical fruits and nuts” (2008), “Biotechnology of Fruit and Nut Crops, 2nd Edition” (2020), and “The Persimmon Genome” (2022). His work has been cited 1340 times according to ResearchGate, indicating his significant impact in the field of horticultural science.

Hideki Murayama

Professor in the Faculty of Agriculture at Yamagata University, Japan. He completed his undergraduate and graduate studies (master course) in agriculture at Kyoto University. Then he received his Ph.D. in Agriculture from Kyoto University in 2002. He began his career in 1984 as a researcher at the Yamagata Prefectural Horticultural Experiment Station, Japan. In 1987, he transferred to Yamagata University, where he remains to this day. He specializes in horticultural science, particularly postharvest biology and technology. Using European pear fruit as his research material, he has elucidated the mechanisms by which fruit loses its ability to ripen after long-term storage, and the mechanisms by which fruit does not fully ripen on the tree. He also conducts research on cherry storage and was convener, together with Dr. Tao and Dr. Taira, of the8th International Cherry Symposium held in Yamagata in 2017. He is actively involved in various academic societies related to horticulture and food preservation.

George Manganaris

George Manganaris is founder and Director of CUT Fruit Sciences & Posharvest Group (www.fruitsciences.eu) at Cyprus University of Technology (CUT). His main scientific interests include the quality evaluation/phytochemical profile of fruit crops with the employment of physiological, biochemical and molecular approaches, the elucidation of fruit ripening syndrome with emphasis in the development of physiological disorders and overall the postharvest maintenance of fresh produce. He is Council Member and elected Vice Chair at the Division Temperate Tree Fruits at ISHS. In the past he has organized three ISHS symposiums and has acted as editor of the Proceedings of the X ISHS Peach Symposium (Acta Horticulturae 1352), V International Postharvest Unlimited Symposium (Acta Horticulturae 1079) and the III International Horticulture in Europe Symposium (Acta Horticulturae 1242). To date, Dr. Manganaris is the author of more than 100 contributions in refereed journals (4400 citations, h-index=33). As Editor-in-Chief of Scientia Horticulturae, he channels over six years of academic leadership to elevate scientific discourse in horticulture.

Rod Drew

Rod Drew is an Emeritus Professor at Griffith University, in Australia. He has been actively involved in ISHS for >35 years. He was President of ISHS, 2014-2018 and President, 29th International Horticulture Congress, 17th – 22nd August 2014, Brisbane. He represented Australia on the ISHS council and served as Chairman of ISHS Commission Biotechnology and Molecular Biology from 2002 to 2010. He was Convenor and/or Chair of Organising and Executive Committees of 20 ISHS symposia. Rod has been invited to serve on >50 International Advisory Committees and Scientific Committees on Congresses (ISHS, Asian Horticulture Congresses, Asian Crop Science Conference), Conferences and Symposia in Australasia, Europe, North and South America. He has been an invited Professor at Universities in Belgium, Japan, China and the USDA in Hawaii. He was Chairman of Board of Global Horticulture Initiative, 2015- 2016, that was developed by former ISHS President, Dr. Norm Looney. Rod’s research interests include Plant Tissue Culture and Plant Biotechnology where he specialised in Tropical Fruit Crops. His Doctor of Science Award from the University of Queensland comprised 100 publications on “Carica papaya as Model for Biotechnology on Tropical Fruit Species”. He has published >200 invited reviews and book chapters, journal and conference papers. He has been editor of 12 volumes of Acta Horticulturae.

Sota Koeda

Sota Koeda received his Ph.D. in Horticultural Science from Kyoto University in 2011. He then started his career as an assistant professor at Kyoto University. In 2015, he joined the faculty of agriculture at Kindai University in Japan and is currently an associate professor in the laboratory of horticulture science. He has more than 40 publications in SCI journals related to horticulture, plant science, genetics, and virology. In 2020, Sota was honored to receive the Japanese Society for Horticultural Science Young Scientist Award. His research group mainly focuses on host resistance to plant viruses for better control of viral diseases in vegetables. Through his research, he has developed collaborative networks with many countries such as Indonesia, India, Taiwan, South Korea and Spain. The main focus of his research group is resistance breeding against begomovirus in Solanaceae and Cucurbit vegetables. His research group has recently identified the begomovirus resistance genes in pepper and cucumber for the first time.

Derek W. Barchenger

Dr. Derek Barchenger serves as Senior Scientist – Pepper Breeding at the World Vegetable Center in Taiwan, where he leads the global pepper breeding and improvement program. Derek joined WorldVeg as a Borlaug Fellow in Global Food Security in 2016 and was hired as a Postdoctoral Scientist in August 2017.

Throughout his career, Derek has contributed to the scientific community, co-authoring more than 70 publications in SCI journals, in addition to authoring three book chapters and one book, as well as the Global Conservation Strategy for Capsicum. His research primarily focuses on developing disease-resistant and heat-tolerant pepper cultivars in diverse market segments, aiming to enhance crop resilience and productivity, resulting in higher farmer income and increase consumer access. The majority of the pepper breeding research at WorldVeg addresses challenges facing smallholder chilli farmers. However, significant efforts are also made in the improvement of sweet and bell pepper for tropical production, as well as on high performing and disease resistant habanero for Sub-Saharan African and Latin America and the Caribbean.

Derek currently serves on the Standing Committee on Plant Breeding Innovations as part of the Asia Pacific Seed Association and is actively involved in the America Society for Horticultural Sciences, serving on multiple committees. In 2023, Derek was honored to receive the American Society for Horticultural Science Early Career – Research, Innovation, and Creativity Award. Currently, Derek and his colleagues are organizing the 27th International Pepper Conference, which will be held in January, 2026 in Bangkok, Thailand.

Wei Li

Wei Li received his Ph.D. in Plant Science from the University of Connecticut in 2017. He is currently a Professor, Doctoral Supervisor, and Vice Dean of the College of Horticulture at China Agricultural University. His research primarily focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying the formation of key traits in apple rootstocks. By integrating transgenic and genome editing technologies with other modern molecular breeding methods, he has developed innovative breeding strategies and techniques for rootstocks. His work has significantly advanced the field of horticultural science, particularly in the development of improved apple rootstock varieties

To date, Professor Li has published 15 papers as the first or corresponding author in high-impact journals such as Nature Genetics and Plant Biotechnology Journal. He has served as the Vice President and Secretary-General of the Apple Branch of the Chinese Society for Horticultural Science and Deputy Secretary-General of the Molecular Breeding Branch of the Chinese Society for Horticultural Science. Additionally, he is an editorial board member for Horticultural Plant Journal, Fruit Research, and the Journal of Plant Resources and Environment. Recognized for his outstanding contributions, he is a recipient of the National Outstanding Youth Science Foundation in China.

Zhenhai Han

Zhenhai Han received his Ph.D. in Horticultural Science from Beijing Agricultural University in 1990. He is a Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the College of Horticulture, China Agricultural University, where he has also served as Dean. He is a Council Member of the International Society for Horticultural Science and Vice President of the Chinese Society for Horticultural Science. With a focus on fruit tree physiology and molecular biology, Professor Han identified the first iron deficiency chlorosis-resistant apple genotype, Malus xiaojinensis, and proposed two mechanisms for iron absorption in apple genotypes. He developed standardized screening methods for iron-efficient genotypes and established a stem-tip culture technique for clonal propagation. He has authored and edited 12 books, published over 430 papers, research reviews, and abstracts, and led more than 30 national and provincial projects. He has served as the director of four provincial and ministerial-level laboratories and co-convened four international congresses. Recognized for his contributions, he has received the National Science and Technology Progress Award (Second Class), six provincial awards, and holds 16 patents. He is also a selected member of the National “Hundred, Thousand, and Ten Thousand Talents Project” and a “Cross-Century Talent” by the Ministry of Education, China.

Sadafumi Uchiyama

Sadafumi Uchiyama is the president of Uchiyama Design Studio and　Curator Emeritus of Portland Japanese Garden.
As the Chief Curator and Director of International Japanese Garden Training Center at Portland Japanese Garden (PJG), Uchiyama oversaw the overall design of Portland Japanese Garden, while leading and facilitating a shared vision for the future of the organization. As the Director of the International Japanese Garden
Training Center, Uchiyama oversaw the planning, establishment, and implementation of program plans and strategies for the Training Center.
After seventeen years of service at Portland Japanese garden, he handed over his position to a successor in January 2024 and since a fulltime landscape architect focusing on his design/build practice both in US and Japan.
Uchiyama is a fourth-generation Japanese gardener from southern Japan, where his family has been involved in gardening for over a century. He is a registered landscape architect in Oregon with a BLA and MLA from the University of Illinois. He is devoted to fostering relations between Japanese gardens in Japan and those outside of Japan. Uchiyama is actively engaged in ongoing public education and regularly speaks at horticultural societies, garden clubs, and has taught and lectured on landscape design and construction courses at various colleges and professional conferences in Japan and throughout the US, Canada and UK.

Peter Irga

Dr. Peter Irga is a leading researcher in the field of green walls, green roofs and urban green infrastructure. As a Senior Lecturer of Nature-based Solutions at the University of Technology Sydney, his work focuses on botanical-based air treatment technologies (or Active Green Walls), advancing them to the point of becoming an emergent technology with multiple projects worldwide. His work has earned him the prestigious Tall Poppy Science Award and has positioned him as a key advisor to international organizations such as the UN FAO and the World Economic Forum.

Sin-Ae Park

Professor Sin-Ae Park is currently a professor at the Department of Bio & Healing Convergence, Graduate School, Konkuk University, Seoul, South Korea. She received her Ph.D. in Social Horticulture and Horticultural Therapy from Kansas State University in the United States and completed her postdoctoral research at the Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine.
Professor Park has introduced Bio & Healing convergence, which connects humans, plants, and the environment, into horticulture research. She is an internationally recognized expert in plant-mediated therapy. Since 2016, she has served as the Chair of the International People-Plant Council (IPPC), and since 2022, she has been serving as the Chair of the Horticultural Therapy Division of the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS).
In addition, she holds the positions of Vice President of the Korea People-Plant Environmental Association and Vice President of the Korean Horticultural Therapy & Welbeing Association. She founded Greenforus Inc., a company that integrates plants with digital therapy, aiming to propose ways for humans to live healthier and more prosperous lives through plant mediation.
Professor Park conducts research on the development and evaluation of horticultural therapy and healing agriculture programs, as well as the healing mechanisms of horticultural activities and environmental resources. She has published over 100 SCI/SSCI papers, more than 15 books, and holds over 30 patents, demonstrating outstanding achievements in her field.

Tomoko Takeuchi

Dr. Takeuchi is an associate professor in the Laboratory of Environmental Planting Science at the Graduate School of Horticulture, Chiba University. Her professional background includes over 20 years as a landscape planner for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, where she was involved in urban landscape planning, and the practical design, construction, management, and operation of parks and historic gardens in the capital city of Tokyo.
Her research focuses on the evaluation and review of the impact of parks and green spaces on the urban environment. That includes the analysis of park user behavior, the elucidation of water management systems in historical Japanese gardens, the visualization of the historical transition of green spaces, the evaluation of stormwater infiltration functions of green spaces, and land use management through green infrastructure.
She is also a member of the Metropolitan Area Regional Planning Committee and the National Scenic Area Committee, and she has served as an advisor to many local governments on green master plans and development projects.

Takuya Kenmochi

Takuya Kenmochi is currently a lecturer at the Graduate School of Landscape design and Management, University of Hyogo. While working as a horticultural therapist at a psychiatric hospital, he completed his doctoral studies in Department of Occupational therapy at the Graduate School of Medicine at Nagoya University. After practicing horticultural therapy at elderly care facilities and using green spaces to develop communities, he joined his current organization in 2022. At his current organization he is training horticultural therapists and conducting research on the effects of horticultural therapy. His specialty is horticultural therapy in the field of psychiatry, and he also conducts research on greening medical and welfare facilities and community building using green spaces. He is a board member of the Japanese Horticultural Therapy Association.

Zhangjun Fei

Dr. Zhangjun Fei is a Professor at Boyce Thompson Institute and an adjunct Professor at School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University. Dr. Fei earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from China Agricultural University and his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. Dr. Fei joined Boyce Thompson Institute as an Assistant Professor in 2006 and promoted to Associate Professor in 2012 and Full Professor 2019. He was a recipient of the US Secretary of Agriculture’s Honor Award for increasing global food security in 2014 and has been recognized as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher since 2019.
Dr. Fei’s research focuses on using integrated bioinformatics and genomics approaches to advance trait discovery, crop improvement and scientific knowledge. His work also involves developing computational tools and algorithms for efficient processing, analysis, and integration of large-scale ‘omics’ datasets. Additionally, his group develops biological databases to facilitate the storage, management, dissemination, and mining of extensive and diverse public plant datasets. Dr. Fei primarily focuses on horticultural crops including, tomato, cucurbits, sweetpotato, apple, rose, pepper, spinach, peach, pear and kiwifruit.

Miyuki Kunihisa

Dr. Kunihisa is a principal researcher at the Institute of Fruit Tree and Tea Science, NARO, Japan. After graduating from Graduate School of Biostudies, Kyoto University, she conducted research on strawberry genomics as a researcher at Institute of Vegetable and Tea Science, NARO.
Since 2010, she has specialized in genetic and genomic research applicable to breeding selection of deciduous fruit trees, mainly apple. She is working on 1) genomic prediction of quantitative traits, and 2) identifying the causative loci or genes associated with physiological disorders in fruits, such as flesh browning, watercore, or skin splitting.
She also serves as an associate professor in Educational Programs in Agro-Biological Resource Sciences in Tsukuba University.

Norio Takada

Dr. Takada is a group leader at the Institute of Fruit Tree and Tea Science, NARO, Japan. After graduating from Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, he conducted research on fruits breeding as a researcher at National Institute of Fruits Tree Science, NARO. He received his PhD at the graduate school of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo in Agriculture in 2018.
Since 2002, he has specialized in breeding research on Japanese pears and chestnuts. In breeding Japanese pears, he involved in the development of eight cultivars, including ‘Hoshimaru’ resistant to pear scab, and ‘Kanta’ has high sugar content. In chestnuts he involved in the development of four cultivars such as ‘Porotan’ and ‘Porosuke’ with easily peeling pellicle.
He is working on the ability of peeling pellicles of chestnuts, and have identified such as the ability of the easy peelig pellicle trait of ‘Porotan’ is controlled by a recessive major gene.

Atsushi Kono

Atsushi Kono is a principal scientist at NARO. Kono received his PhD at the graduate school of Science, The University of Tokyo in plant molecular biology in 2006. He joined and worked in NARO subsidiary in Higashihiroshima from 2006 to 2018, he became a co-breeder of three grapevine and six persimmon cultivars. His research interest was in grapevine disease resistance (anthracnose and donwy mildew) as well as persimmon DNA markers for astringency. During the career, he was a visiting scientist in Prof. Bruce Reish’s lab at Cornell university (New York State Experimental Station) in Geneva, NY, in 2012-2013 studying grapevine downy mildew resistance. After working at the NARO headquarters for one year and at the government ministry for two years, he has been working on stone fruit breeding in Tsukuba since 2022. Kono focuses on fruit tree breeding as well as related research such as disease resistance including methodology for resistance evaluation, and developing and optimizing DNA markers for real breeding.

Fabrizio Costa

Fabrizio Costa is an Associate Professor at the University of Trento (C3A-Center for Agriculture, Food and Environment). He earned a PhD. in Fruit Crop Science at the University of Bologna. During his post-doctorate he was Visiting Scientist at the Plant Research International of the University of Wageningen (the Netherland) and the Boyce Thompson Institute, Cornell University (Ithaca, NY, USA), where he conducted studies of QTL mapping for fruit quality and the transcriptional profiling of the apple ripening. Fabrizio Costa has actively participated in several national and European projects, as well as in the genome sequencing program of grapevine and apple conducted at the Edmund Mach Foundation, where he was a researcher in the field of genetics and fruit genomics. He is the author of several publications in various journals of international interest in the field of Plant Science and Plant Genetics. He has served as scientific reviewer for international projects and he is a member of the editorial board in journals of significant importance in the field of plant genetics and plant science.
The research activity of the Costa lab is focused on the study of the fruit ripening processes and the employment of multidisciplinary System Genetics approach to unravel the genes involved in the control of important fruit quality features and the development of postharvest disorder. The final goal is the exploitation of the genetic variome towards the design of new molecular markers useful to support breeding for the development of superior varieties.

RGF Richard Visser

Prof. Dr. Richard G.F. Visser is a leading authority in plant breeding and currently serves as a Professor of Plant Breeding at Wageningen University. His research focuses on (i) breeding crops for controlled environmental agriculture and (ii) improving the efficiency and efficacy of breeding programs by deploying new technologies such as genomic information, gene editing techniques, and artificial intelligence. With over 650 publications, 46,600 citations, an H-index of 110, 25 patents, and the supervision of 170 PhD theses, Prof. Visser has made transformative contributions to plant and agricultural Science.

Since 1998, Prof. Visser has held pivotal academic roles, including Chair and Head of Plant Breeding at Wageningen University & Research (2005–2024), Honorary Professor at the Industrial Crop Research Institute of Henan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China (2016–2024), and Dean of Research at Wageningen University (2016–2018). He has also served as an editor for leading journals, including Euphytica (2002–present), Theoretical and Applied Genetics (2008–present), and Horticultural Plant Journal (2015–present), furthering the dissemination of innovative research in plant breeding.

As shown below, Prof. Visser has served or is currently serving on the membership of numerous organizations: member of the Singapore Food Agency’s Scientific Advisory Panel (2023-2025), Honorary board member and advisor of Shouguang Vegetable Industry Holding Group (China/The Netherlands (2019-2024), elected member of Koninklijke Hollandse Maatschappij der Wetenschappen (2015 for life), board member (2012- present), President (2016-2020) and past President (2020-2024) of EUCARPIA, member of the Academic Board of Wageningen University (2010-2018), and board member and vice chair of the Board for Variety Protection in the Netherlands (2002-2021).

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