MAY 2026 | SEEDWORLD.COM/EUROPE I SEED WORLD EUROPE I 39 shippers, packers, brokers, supermarkets and consumers funnel information to research. Trends and signals help breeders foresee market evolution, especially for seedless varieties that can take up to a decade. Sarria Villada describes continuous dialogue and collaboration, with commer cial and breeding teams visiting key markets each year to learn challenges. Insights are analysed country by country to define road maps by segment. Disease resistance prior ities are aligned with local phytopathology researchers and official analyses. Calvert describes colleagues in the field listening daily to growers and attend ing meetings to understand conditions and expectations. She provides a practical example: development of a polliniser vari ety designed to address grower challenges in pollination, shape stability and synchro nisation with seedless types, showing how specific feedback can translate into breeding protocols and selection criteria. Patel emphasises customer centricity and regular contacts with growers and part ners globally, supported by cross-functional feedback to forecast disruptions and prior itise areas for solutions. The value chain ecosystem is monitored closely to keep pace with evolving consumer preferences and retail trends. Maestre frames alignment as collabo ration rather than following. Partnerships and co-creation are described as engines of progress, supported by a broader ecosystem of tools, agronomic support, marketing ini tiatives and innovation structures. DIVERSITY: REFILLING THE GENETIC RESERVOIR Finally, there is the genetic ceiling. Watermelon has limited diversity in com mercial backgrounds, and many useful traits were lost during domestication. Djordjevic argues breeders must keep refilling the “genetic reservoir” without excessive red tape. With limited crop pro tection options, genetic resistance becomes essential. “Breeding success is defined in growers’ fields,” he says. Having diver sity and options in the breeder kitchen is what allows fast, practical solutions when pressure hits. In his view, access to diverse germplasm is not about theory or curiosity, it is about preparedness. It’s not without a reason that old adage of Louis Paster says: “future favors the prepared mind”. Calvert points to the USDA ger mplasm bank in Athens, Georgia (U.S.), as a strong resource, while acknowledging the challenge: much material is wild and not suitable for commercial products. Still, novel traits within it are being dissected through public research and could impact future commercial varieties. Sarria Villada describes a collection representing diversity in wild relatives and landraces from domestication centres, sup ported by collaboration between breeding and pre-breeding. Mutant populations are also used to identify interesting mutations in a domesticated background. Fernández offers the historical lens: during domestication, traits for resistance and stress tolerance were sacrificed in favour of larger fruits, sweetness, lack of bitterness, and improved colours. Now breeders must recover those sacrificed traits, often from wild accessions sourced from genebanks. TECHNOLOGY: MOLECULAR TOOLS AND THE FUTURE OF “FASTER WITHOUT SHORTCUTS” On the question of molecular techniques, several breeders are unambiguous: they are essential. Sarria Villada argues that com plex traits such as yield, shelf life and flesh texture cannot be fully optimised through traditional methods alone. Marker-assisted selection, genomic prediction and molecular approaches are needed to accelerate gain. Fernández describes biotechnological tools as fundamental for optimising time and resources when establishing parental lines. Molecular markers linked to resistances and traits increase speed and efficiency. Djordjevic illustrates why genomics matters with a memorable one-in-a-billion analogy: “If you try to combine two sets of 10 favorable genes from two different vari eties using traditional selection, the odds of getting the perfect combination are about one in a billion; you have a better chance of winning the lottery! Genomic tools dramat ically improve those odds, allowing breeders to identify winning combinations in min utes rather than years of field testing,” he explains. Still, he draws a clear boundary: “Technology should support breeder intui tion, not replace it.” Nothing can substitute real-world field experience. When it comes to new plant breed ing techniques like CRISPR-Cas, Lopez Fernandez notes gene editing could become powerful, if legislation allows, enabling innovative products with greater efficiency and speed. Meanwhile, Sarria Villada high lights digital phenotyping and genomic selection as part of a broader digital trans formation: collecting high-resolution data, improving selection accuracy, estimating breeding values early, and reducing time and cost while integrating sustainability goals. THE DIRECTION OF TRAVEL What emerges is a seed sector that is mod ernising quickly but still rooted in field reality. Breeders are building resilience for a climate that’s already changing, stacking resistances for a world with fewer chemical tools, and expanding diversity to recover traits lost long ago. They are using genom ics and digital tools to move faster, but still measuring success in the simplest way: does it grow well, does it ship well, and does it taste good? Watermelon, after all, remains a fruit of expectation. And the breeder’s job is to make sure the expectation is met, again and again, no matter what the season throws at it. Read Part 1 Here. Watermelon variety ‘Premium'. Photo: BASF I Nunhems
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