My name is Kidanemaryam Reta, and I am a PhD student in the French Associates Institute for Agriculture & Biotechnology of Drylands and I am jointly supervised by Prof. Aaron Fait and Prof. Naftali Lazarovitch. I came from Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia and headquarters of the African Union. I received my BSc and MSc degrees in the field of plant sciences from Haramaya University and Jimma University, respectively, in Ethiopia.

While earning my BSc degree, a profound interest in undertaking a deep study on plants developed in me. To pursue this interest, I completed my MSc degree. But the hunger for doing more in the field of plant sciences, especially in the current climatic conditions that threaten world agriculture and environmental sustainability, seemed never-ending in me. So, I decided to do a further degree to investigate the scientific fundamentals in the field of dryland agricultural biotechnology.

I came to Israel in October 2021 for my PhD degree to study in the field of Agriculture & Biotechnology of Drylands with the dream of learning cutting-edge arid agricultural approaches and techniques under the supervision of Professor Aaron Fait and Professor Naftali Lazarovitch. Thus, I can hopefully contribute to the agricultural development in my home country.

From the start of my PhD journey, my advisors introduced me to the entirely new and fascinating world of integrated research approaches in desert studies to unveil the multi-omics response (such as metabolomic, transcriptomic, and genomic responses) of the different novel grapevine rootstocks under drought and salinity stress. Interestingly, I dove into a new methodology, a new high-throughput analytical tool with the integration of high-throughput physiology-based stress response phenotyping platforms to study the physiological change and omics response of the rootstocks when they are exposed to a combined salinity and drought stressor.

Currently, we are doing a study in a vineyard established at the BIDR, in the field and the greenhouse, to reveal the real omics response of the novel grapevine rootstocks to combined salt and drought stress conditions. Jointly, we are dealing with the metabolic changes of the grapevine berries from the desert to the bottle in our winery. Hence, we are keen to examine the wine quality and yield. Parallelly, to identify the most significant rootstock for combined stress tolerance, we are examining the rootstocks in a separate greenhouse experiment to deal with their transpiration efficiency, root system architecture, and other physiological parameters. In this case, we are interested in enhancing crop performance under saline soil and drought stress conditions by optimizing transpiration efficiency and root morphological traits to ultimately increase crop quality and yield.

My name is Khin Maw Kyi, and I'm a master's degree student studying with Dr. Nina Kamennaya as my advisor. I come from Myanmar, located in the western portion of mainland Southeast Asia. I received a bachelor's degree in Myanmar from the University of Agriculture in 2018 and decided to continue studying for a master’s degree at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s French Associates Institute for Agriculture and Biotechnology of Drylands. My research focuses on biological soil crusts (BSCs) from arid and hyper-arid regions. My supervisor exposed me to the interesting world of cyanobacteria in drylands during my master's program, as well as a novel way to study them. BSCs are surface soil communities found in arid and semiarid environments all over the world. Cyanobacteria, oxygenic phototrophs, are the most essential components of biological soil crusts because of their ability to synthesize organic matter via oxygenic photosynthesis. Dryland BSCs supply a considerable amount of fixed carbon. Cyanobacteria's ability to produce extracellular polysaccharides (EPS) is controlled by both nutritional and environmental factors. The availability of inorganic carbon species  (Ci,: HCO₃^- and CO₂ )  to cyanobacteria is dependent on a CO₂  concentrating process that acquires and concentrates CO₂ within the cell. 

The study project's overall purpose is to examine the number and diversity of photoautotrophs in natural soil crusts from arid and hyper-arid environments, as well as the impact of increased Ci availability on photoautotrophic communities in the soil crusts. Our lab's research focuses on the physiology and ecology of cyanobacteria. We use molecular biology, microscopy and imaging, and field work in our project.

Desert truffles are edible hypogeous (forming fruit bodies below ground) fungi that grow in semi-arid and arid areas. They are highly valued for both their culinary and medicinal properties in the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East and the Gulf areas. Desert truffles form mycorrhizae mostly with plants belonging to the Cistaceae family, mainly with Helianthemum species. These truffles are still, usually, collected from the wild, but loss of habitats due to urbanization, desertification, intensive agriculture and global warming, along with an urgent need to develop new crops adapted to arid conditions, are currently hastening efforts towards their domestication. Here, we sum up the successful research leading to cultivation of this crop, based on plots that were established in sandy to silt soils with high pH values and low mineral contents. We report suitable methods for the production of mycorrhized seedlings and preferred planting methods. We found that under natural conditions, yields are affected by water availability, so irrigation regimes to ensure good yields were sought. Although good yields were indeed obtained in some years, fluctuations in yields over the years were significant; the reasons for this are not entirely clear and are currently under study. This crop is particularly well suited to relatively marginal conditions, but prospects for establishment of desert truffles as a niche crop for arid and semi-arid areas depend on further improvements in yields.

This project was conducted in collaboration with Mr. Ofer Guy, MOP­ Ramat-Negev.

This research was funded by the Israel Ministry of Agriculture, grant no. 16-13-000

An exhibition initiated and supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in collaboration with the Macromicro Non-Profit Association
 Concept and the curatorship of Fabiano Ventura

The Embassy of Italy in Israel and the Italian Cultural Institute in Tel Aviv were inspired to present Ventura's evocative and disturbing photographic documentation of the fragility of high-altitude environments right in the heart of the Negev Desert, an area no less vulnerable and equally threatened by climate change. 

The exhibition will be open to visitors from 20 December 2021 until 16 February 2022 at the French Associates Institute for Biotechnology and Agriculture of Drylands (Bldg 25), "Italian Mountains" in the George Evens Family Auditorium (Bldg 19), "A look at the world". 

Sunday–Thursday, 9:00–17:00
Friday, 9:00-12:30, group visits only.
Early reservation is required.
Entrance in accordance with the guidelines of the Health Ministry's Green Pass.
Children must be accompanied by an adult.
 For information on arrival and group coordination, please contact Yamit, BIDR - BGU, e-mail: [email protected], tel. 08-6563449