check
Research Themes | The Robert H. Smith

Research Themes

Over the years, our research has introduced many accomplishments in Israel and worldwide.

The Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment's activity is focused under four central research themes:

Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture

the physiology of the production and the reciprocal relations of the agricultural growth with its environment; genetics, evolution, breeding and agricultural genomics; biotechnology, cell biology and organism biology; applied ecology, preservation of nature and management of open fields.

Animal Health and Husbandry

animal physiology; biology of reproduction processes; feeding of ruminants; animal immunology; environmental physiology of animals.

Nutrigenomics and Functional Food

biochemistry and microbiology of food; the chemistry and physics of the production process and food preservation; nutritional values and physiology from the single cell level to the whole organism; functional foods and probiotics; nutrition and metabolistic diseases.

Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources

investigation of the soil-water-plant- atmosphere continuum in relation to water uptake, fertilization and pollution; environmental microbiology; fungus-bacteria-plant relations; synthetic biology of the microorganism; development of new solutions to agricultural pests; pollination quality improvement in different growths, narrowing usage of pesticides; agroecology and preservation of nature; environmental economics and management of natural resources; economy of the agricultural sector and agricultural policy; water resource economics; food products marketing, development initiatives in agribusiness.

Over the years, our research has introduced many accomplishments in Israel and worldwide. Research at the Faculty has brought upon many improvements such as:

  • increased yields of fruit, vegetables, grain crops, flowers and cotton;
  • help overcome problems of pest damage and soil contamination;
  • discovering more efficient usage of water;
  • innovative irrigation techniques;
  • production of novel food ingredients which have positive metabolic and physiologic effects;
  • discovering mechanisms which control production and efficiency of ruminants, poultry and fish species;
  • improving the understanding of the pathogenesis of veterinary diseases and the health of companion and production animals.