Roland W. S. Weber is the Head of Crop Protection at the Esteburg Centre in Jork (northern Germany), with responsibility for diagnostics and plant pathological advice for some 10,000 ha of pome and stone fruit production in the Lower Elbe region, Germany’s largest fruit production area. He is also an Affiliated Professor at the Department of Food Science, Aarhus University, Denmark. Following his B.Sc. (1992) and Ph.D. (1996) degrees in Biological Sciences at the University of Exeter (U.K.), he deepened his mycological interests in a research fellowship with John Webster, culminating in their joint authorship of Introduction to Fungi (third edition, 2007). After a period of research on fungal secondary metabolites at the University of Kaiserslautern (Germany) from 1999, he joined the Esteburg Centre in 2006. He is the author of over 120 peer-reviewed publications as well as 200 articles for fruit growers. His current research interests include fungicide resistance and infection biology of major fungal fruit pathogens, as well as new and unusual diseases. On a regional scale, he investigates established and newly introduced insect pests as well as aspects of climate change.

Antonios Petridis is Assistant Professor in Fruit Crop Physiology and Sustainable Fruit Production at the Department of Food Science, Aarhus University, Denmark. He holds a BSc (2006) and MSc (2007) in Horticultural Sciences and a PhD in Plant Physiology (2012) from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. After receiving his doctoral degree, he worked as post-doctoral researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (2013-2016; Gatersleben, Germany) and the James Hutton Institute (2016-2019; UK). His research spans from basic to applied and focuses on improving productivity and environmental resilience in fruit trees and berries. He has authored more than 30 peer-reviewed publications and grower-oriented articles.