Bruno GOBIN

Bruno Gobin is director of Viaverda, the Belgian research and extension center for Vegetable, Potato and Ornamental Plant Research as well as public and private green management research aimed at bringing research results to practical solutions in the field.

He has a M.Sc. in Biology (1993) and a Ph.D. in Science (1997) from the Catholic University of Leuven. He worked in entomological research as a JSPS research fellow at Kagawa University (Japan), as an EU-TMR post-doc at the universities of Würzburg and Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany), and as a FWO-research fellow at the Laboratory of Entomology, Leuven University, Belgium.

From 2004 onwards, his research shifted towards applied sciences as he became Head of the Zoology Department in the Royal Research station of Gorsem (PCFruit), with a focus on integrated pest management in fruit crops. Since 2009, his focus shifted to research and extension in Ornamentals, Potatoes and Vegetables. He published several scientific and technical papers on entomology and crop protection. He is board member of of a number of organizations supporting research and extension for horticulture (CCBT supporting organic production, and B3W supporting sustainable fertilization) and three companies providing services to growers (Primoris analytical laboratory, TACO extension service and CKCert quality control and certification). He was chair of the EU Commodity Expert Group in Ornamental plants from 2011-2019 and was convenor of the international working group on covered crops temperate climate of IOBC-WPRS from 2014-2021. Recently, he succesfully merged three independent research centers to a single knowledge and extension center Viaverda, providing research and innovation advise to growers. He is advisory member of various national extension and research initiatives. He is a founding member of the Technology Pool for Ornamentals and Agrolink, two collaborative initiatives creating a single research chain linking academia, applied research and extension to growers. His main aim is to make research accessible to growers and to translate research results into practical solutions for innovation on the farm.