YOUR TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

As the Watermelon and Melon Pre-Breeder, you are responsible to discover, develop and enable traits and novel breeding technologies for the global watermelon and melon breeding programs. You will be managing relevant germplasm, building discovery populations, as well as phenotyping and selecting research materials to allow the development of molecular markers or make genomic predictions. You further design and execute trials to validate integrated traits in elite backgrounds before transfer to breeding.

WHO YOU ARE

You are a pragmatic, entrepreneurial researcher, driven by scientific curiosity but with a passion to transform knowledge into value-added products for our customers. Accustomed to working in multidisciplinary teams with diverse backgrounds, you are collaborative and drive a culture of experimentation and appetite for continuous improvement and innovation. You don’t mind working under, at times, harsh greenhouse or field conditions, but also enjoy spending time in the office to plan, design and analyze data using statistical software, breeding databases and information management systems. You have proven experience in managing a small team of assistants or technicians and understand that frequent travel is part of the job.

Required Qualifications:

• PhD in plant breeding, genetics or related subject
• In depth working knowledge of horticulture, agronomy, genetics, pathology, statistics, physiology, molecular genetics and general agricultural practices.
• Excellent computer skills
• Fluent in English, some knowledge of Italian and/or Spanish is nice to have.

YOUR APPLICATION

We are offering a permanent contract.

For more information and to apply please send an email to Peter Visser, Head of Trait Development, Vegetable Seeds, at peter.visser@vegetableseeds.basf.com.com or call: +1.208.250.3500. 

Location: St Agata (Bologna) Italy

St Agata is a quiet, picturesque place close to Bologna, with lots of history and only minutes away from legendary Lamborghini and Ferrari manufacturing factories.