26th EUCARPIA Maize and Sorghum Conference

Breeding in the era of genome editing and artificial intelligence

International Conference — XXVI Maize and Sorghum Conference

Bologna — June 30 – July 2, 2025

Keynote Speakers

Rex Bernardo

Rex Bernardo

Director, Plant Breeding Center
Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics
University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, USA

"How to use CRISPR if you're a maize quantitative geneticist"

Ana Butrón

Ana Butrón

Scientific Researcher
Consejo Superior de investigaciones Científicas, Spain

"Maize resistance to stem borers and to kernel contamination with fumonisins"

David Pot

David Pot

Biological Systems Department
CIRAD Agricultural Research for Development, Montpellier, France

"Harnessing global diversity and predictive biology to accelerate sorghum breeding"

Alexander Bucksch

Alexander Bucksch

Associate Professor, School of Plant Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

"The biology emerging from root phenotyping: Advances in Maize, Sorghum and Co."

Hilde Nelissen

Hilde Nelissen

VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology, University of Ghent, Belgium

"Genome editing: from potential to applications"

Stéphane Nicolas

Stéphane Nicolas

Génétique Quantitative et Evolution - INRAE, Gif sur Yvette, France

"Characterization of maize landraces to identify sources of diversity"