14 I SEED WORLD EUROPE I SEEDWORLD.COM/EUROPE | MAY 2026 FLORIAN BARTHÈS Plant Breeder at PeaBoost, France Florian Barthès is a plant breeder working within PeaBoost in France, a collaborative breeding initiative bringing together Limagrain, Florimond Desprez and RAGT to strengthen innovation in field pea breeding. Earlier in his career at RAGT, Florian worked in the company’s field pea breeding programme, where he helped consol idate a long established programme and contributed to the development of successful varieties such as Iconic. Despite field pea being a rela tively small crop in the seed market, Florian has played an important role in introducing modern breeding approaches such as genomic selec tion and expanding breeding targets to include traits like aphid and virus resistance. His ability to combine technical expertise with collaboration across organisations led to his role coordinating shared breeding efforts within PeaBoost. Florian believes plant breed ing can have a direct and practical impact on agriculture, particularly for crops like grain legumes that support more sustainable farming systems. By improving the performance and reliability of nitrogen fixing crops such as peas, he hopes to help strengthen crop rotations and contribute to reducing Europe’s reliance on external protein sources. EMILY VERDEYEN Plant Breeder at Dümmen Orange Netherlands B.V., Netherlands Emily Verdeyen is a plant breeder at Dümmen Orange in the Netherlands, working on the development of new rose varieties. Breeding roses pre sents unique challenges, as the crop is tetraploid and many of the traits that determine commercial success are genetically complex and can only be evaluated several years after a new genotype is created. Emily has demonstrated a strong ability to navigate these challenges through creative thinking, dedication and close collaboration with col leagues across multiple departments. Her work contributes to accelerating progress in a crop traditionally char acterised by long breeding cycles. She believes the future of orna mental breeding will increasingly rely on predictive and genomic approaches that allow breeders to identify promis ing parental lines earlier in the breed ing process. By combining these tools with careful field evaluation, Emily aims to develop resilient and sustain able rose varieties that perform well under both biotic and abiotic stresses while requiring fewer chemical and nutrient inputs. For her, innovation in breeding is key to meeting evolving expectations from growers and con sumers alike. TOMMASO CERIOLI Corn Breeding Scientist at Corteva Agriscience, Italy Tommaso Cerioli is a young plant breeder at Corteva Agriscience in Italy, where he works as a corn breed ing scientist developing new maize inbreds and hybrids for European agriculture. In his role, he contributes to the advancement of elite maize products, working closely with com mercial teams to help deliver high per forming hybrids that meet the needs of farmers across diverse growing environments. Tommaso holds a PhD from Louisiana State University, where his research focused on genomic selec tion and improving breeding efficiency in applied rice breeding programmes. This experience provided him with a strong quantitative and data driven foundation, which he now applies in his commercial maize breeding work. Looking ahead, Tommaso sees plant breeding as a key driver in addressing the challenges of climate change and agricultural sustainabil ity. By combining innovative breeding strategies with emerging tools such as genomic selection, genome editing and artificial intelligence, he aims to accelerate the development of resil ient and high performing crop varieties for the future. 20 Most Promising Young Plant Breeders in Europe
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