From the new director

First, I would like to congratulate Yoni and thank him for the three years he served as FAAB Director. These were significant years in which we continued to advance research and teaching in the fields of agriculture and biotechnology. In particular, I would like to thank Yoni for his strong support of student travel to scientific conferences and for his improvement of the institute's scientific equipment. I intend to continue on this path and support these important activities. Read more

Prof. Naftali Lazarovitch, Director

From the outgoing director

Dear friends, colleagues, and students,
On August 1, 2020, Prof. Naftali Lazarovitch replaced me as the head of the French Associates Institute for Agriculture and Biotechnology of Drylands, after the three years during which I had the privilege of being the director of this institute. Read more

Prof. Jhonathan Ephrath

Meet the researcher

Dr. Nina Kamennaya

The research in my lab focuses on the physiology and ecology of cyanobacteria. These are major photosynthetic organisms that evolved > 2.5 billion years ago, drove oxygenation of the planet, and continue producing ~1/4 of the atmospheric oxygen. Cyanobacteria populate any available sunlit environment and play a key role in microbial communities by sustaining them with a range of organic compounds. Their capacity to fix carbon and nitrogen makes cyanobacteria an attractive system for biotechnological applications, whilst the oxygenic metabolism of cyanobacteria, combined with their superior resilience to environmental stressors, positions cyanobacteria at the forefront of astrobiological and terraforming research.

The specific research questions addressed in my lab include:

Physiological responses of cyanobacteria to excess CO2 availability
Carbohydrate metabolism of cyanobacteria
Cyanobacteria of desert crusts
Interactions between cyanobacteria and their unicellular predators

Methods:

Molecular biology and genetic engineering
Microscopy and imaging
Physiology, biochemistry, and metabolic tracing
Field work

Open Positions

Tenure-Track Position in Agrobiology

ISF grants

Dr. Ilya Gelfand

Understanding effects of varying nitrogen and carbon availability on soil emissions of nitrogen oxides in drylands

Prof. Shimon Rachmilevitch

Carbon and metabolic benefits and costs of self/non-self recognition in plants

Dr. Vered Tzin

Herbivorous insects are responsible for destroying one-fifth of the world's total crop plant production annually.

Prizes and Fellowships

Prof. Nurit Agam and Prof. Moshe Sagi has been appointed COST Action Management Committee members

Prof. Nurit Agam: Action CA19120 - WATer isotopeS in the critical zONe: from groundwater recharge to plant transpiration

Prof. Moshe Sagi: Action CA19116 - Trace metal metabolism in plant

Aviad Perry, supervised by Prof. Shimon Rachmilevitch, and Ibrahim Salman, supervised by Vered Tzin, have become STEP Fellows.

STEP is a cross-border program that partially funds the tuition of pairs of Israeli and Palestinian scholars in graduate programs in the health sciences so they can advance their careers, improve services to their communities, and build transformative, enduring relations.

Dr. Reut Shavit was awarded a BARD-Vaadia postdoctoral fellowship ,

Host lab: Prof. Georg Jander, Boyce Thompson Institute, NY, USA

Subject: The influence of fall armyworm oral secretions on jasmonic acid-regulated plant defenses

Jingbo Zhen won The Yair Guron Scholarship

Article of the month

Environmental tradeoffs of integrated aquaculture-agriculture systems

Thomas Groenveld, Naftali Lazarovitch, Yair Y. Kohn, and Ilya Gelfand

Recent research published in the Environment Sciences & Technology by researchers from the French Associates Institute for Agriculture and Biotechnology of Drylands of BGU compared the efficiency of fertilizer use and the environmental impact of integrated aquaculture-agriculture systems with different fertigation (fertilization + irrigation) configurations. Systems incorporating fish and vegetable production have been shown to have high water and nutrient use efficiency, however, the environmental impact and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) of such systems weren't described yet. Studied systems differed by types of fertigation; the researchers compared fertigation by aquaculture effluent with and without ammonia addition and the common fertigation practice.

While the efficiency of fertilizer use, the yield and the amount of nitrate leaching of the different systems was very similar, the emissions of nitrous oxide (N₂O) and the N₂O production pathways, differed significantly between the systems. Recycling of nitrogen due to fertigation with aquaculture effluent prevented 32-37 kg of CO₂ equivalent emissions per Mg of fresh cucumbers produced in comparison to the common fertigation practice.

Full article

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