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Environmental Physics and Irrigation
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| Mathematical and Statistical Crop Modeling |
Evaluation of various influences, e.g. irrigation management, water quality, climate change, etc. on agricultural crop development and water use, by developing mechanistic and statistical models or by applying existing models (e.g. AquaCrop, DSSAT and APSIM).
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| Education requirements |
| PhD in mathematics and/or statistics and/or agricultural engineering and/or agricultural sciences and/or plant sciences and/or physical geography and/or closely related fields |
| Scientific experience |
| The ideal candidate will have a background in agronomy and a prooven ability to conduct rigorous scientific research (evident by grantsmentship and peer-reviewed publications). Previous experience with crop modeling is a plus. |
| Skills |
| Good English communication; Reading and writing of technical / scientific documents in English; Scientific programing experience desired (Matlab, R, Python, etc.). |
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| Rozenstein Oferr |
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Team: Josef Tanny (ARO), Shimrit Maman (BGU), Dan G. Blumberg (BGU) |
| Using remote sensing to estimate crop water requirements |
The aim of the research is to estimate the evapotranspiration of field crops using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 time-series and calibrate it against field measurements using an eddy-covatiance system. Fusion between optical and radar data.
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| Education requirements |
| Ph. D. in: Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geography, Engineering or a related field. |
| Scientific experience |
| Experience handling remote sensing and GIS data, spatial – spectral – temporal analysis. Programming skills, extensive knowledge in signal / image processing, spectroscopy, machine learning, and statistics / geo-statistics are a plus. |
| Skills |
| Good English communication; Reading and writing of technical / scientific documents in English; Technical skills related to remote sensing and agricultural meteorology. |
Soil Chemistry, Plant Nutrition and Microbiology
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| BARAM SHAHAR |
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Team: Anna Berezkin, M.Sc. (Engineer/Technician) |
| High frequency N application and system leakiness |
The general objective of the research is to evaluate the impact of fertilizer application regime on nitrogen use efficiency. More specifically the research would: 1. Quantify the impact of nitrogen (N) pulse fertigation vs. continuous low N fertigation on N2O emission. 2. Study the impact of N application regime and soil C/N ratio on CO2 and N2O emission. 3. Evaluate the impact of N application regime on the short term (minutes to hours) fate of nitrate (NO3-) nitrite (NO2-) and ammonium (NH4+) in the root-zone. 4. Study the effect of N application regime on the abundance of nitrifying and denitrifying genes
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| Education requirements |
| Doctorate (PhD) in life scince |
| Scientific experience |
| Experience in management of field and/or lab work. Previous knowledge on the nitrogen cycle in soils, including knowledge of analytical methods (e.g. spectrophotometers, gas chromatograph, dilutions etc.). |
| Skills |
| Speaks English, motivated, reliable, can give and receive criticism, can work alone in the field/lab. |
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| Bar-tal Asher |
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Team: Dr Guy Levy Michael Borisover Shabtai Cohen Dror Minz David Russo |
| Examination of treatments for the prevention and amendment of damage caused by Treated Waste Water irrigation in orchards planted on clay soils |
Irrigation with treated wastewater (TWW) is expanding in the world. In Israel TWW is about 50% of the irrigating water in agriculture. However, in the last decade deterioration in soil properties and decline in crops yields following long-term irrigation of orchards with TWW in clay soils have been reported. The overall goal of this proposal is to evaluate different management practices for mitigating adverse effects of irrigation with Treated Waste Water (TWW) on soils and crops. The study includes field experiment in a mature orchard irrigated by TWW. The strategy of the research includes integration of in field measurements accompanied by (i) detailed analyses of the effects of TWW on soil physical, chemical and microbial properties, and (ii) simulations of soil processes (transport of water, salts, nutrients and oxygen, their uptake by plants and plant biomass production) with a stochastic field scale 3-D transport model.
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| Education requirements |
| Ph. D. in Soil Science or Soil Microbiology or Agronomy or Plant Physiology |
| Scientific experience |
| Holding a PhD/DSc degree in agricultural/soil sciences with specialization and experience in one or more of the following: plant nutrition, soil physics, soil microbiology. Experience in one of the following fields is of advantage: using novel and advanced methods to characterize soil organic matter and microbiome; meseaurements of plant water status, transpiration and photosynthesis; ions interactions in soil and uptake by plants; soil physical properties. |
| Skills |
| The candidate is expected to (i) manage a research program and be able to analyze, interpret and summarize experimental results; (ii) participate in a multidisciplinary research team and collaborate with other scientists from the institute. Language – Proficient in English (spoken, written and reading). The ability to use mathematical and statistical methods of data analysis are beneficial. |
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| Borisover Mikhail |
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Team: Dr. Isam Sabbah (The Braude colleague, Israel), Prof. Helen Thanh Nguyen (The university of Illinoi, USA) |
| Characterization of organic matter in rain and drainage water treated for irrigation: linking organic matter spectroscopy to formation of water disinfection byproducts and toxicity linked with NIFA-BARD project |
Microbial contamination of the harvested rainwater (RW) and the drainage water (DW) from soilless farms prevent the use of these waters for irrigation. Disinfection of RW and DW with chlorination and ozonation may lead to formation of toxic disinfection byproducts (DBPs) . One objective of this work includes the development of of excitation-emission fluorescence spectroscopy as a tool for prediction of DBP formation in RW and DW.
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| Education requirements |
| Holding a PhD/DSc degree in exact or life sciences or engineering |
| Scientific experience |
| The candidate is expected to have experience in basic and/or applied research. Experience in different spectroscopies, and specifically in fluorescence spectroscopy, knowledge and understanding of chemometric methods of data analysis, is of advantage. |
| Skills |
| The candidate is expected to (i) manage a research program and be able to analyze, interpret and summarize experimental results; (ii) participate in a multidisciplinary international research project and collaborate with other participants of the project as well as scientists from the institute. Language – Proficient in English (spoken, written and reading). The ability to use mathematical and statistical methods of data analysis and chemometrics are beneficial. |
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| Borisover Mikhail |
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Team: Guy Levy, Oshri Rinot, Adi Oren Institute of Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences; Department of Soil chemistry, plant nutrition and microbiology |
Effects of soil type and land use on the FTIR spectral characteristics of soil organic matter
** This project is associated with an existing interdisciplinary research program on “soil health”. |
In recent years Fourier Transformed Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy has been widely used to characterize the composition of soil organic matter (SOM). Composition of SOM may be affected by (i) soil type; cultivated soils in Northern Israel are mostly clayey, and those in the south are mainly loess, and (ii) type of land use (e.g., non-cultivated, orchards, field crops). The objective of the project is to develop FTIR-based approaches for quantitative characterization of SOM composition in aid of assessing SOM functionality in soils varying in texture and under differing land uses.
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| Education requirements |
| Holding a PhD/DSc degree in agricultural/soil sciences or exact or life sciences with specialization and experience in the use of FTIR spectroscopy. |
| Scientific experience |
| The candidate is expected to have experience in basic and/or applied research with use of FTIR spectroscopy. Experience in using different types of IR measurements (i.e., transmission, ATR, DRIFT), knowledge and understanding of chemometric methods of data analysis, is of advantage. |
| Skills |
| The candidate is expected to (i) manage a research program and be able to analyze, interpret and summarize experimental results; (ii) participate in a multidisciplinary research team and collaborate with other scientists from the institute. Language – Proficient in English (spoken, written and reading). The ability to use mathematical and statistical methods of data analysis and chemometrics are beneficial. |
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| CYTRYN EDDIE |
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Team: Dr. Shlomo Blum, Kimron Veterinary Institute; Dr. Shelly Druyan, Animal Sciences Institute; Prof. Roni Shapira, Hebrew University |
| Elucidating the effect of antibiotic growth promoters on antibiotic resistance in poultry farms |
The objective of this research project is to elucidate the impact of antibiotic growth promoters on antibiotic resistance in poultry. We will specifically explore both litter and meat, combining different culture techniques with cutting edge molecular, genomic and bioinformatic approaches. We will specifically address how these growth promoters effect the microbiome and the horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance genes.
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| Education requirements |
| PhD in biology or microbiology |
| Scientific experience |
| PhD experience in clinical microbiology, environmental microbiology or microbial biotechnology. Strong first-author publicatoin. |
| Skills |
| Experience in bacterial cultivation techniques; molecular biology- PCR, qPCR, cloning, sequencing library preparation; bioinformatics tools- MEGAN, BLAST, MOTHUR/QIIME; good writing skills. |
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| The influence of biological properties of composts on soil microbial activity and soil structure development |
Compost amendments are well-known for their potential to improve soil agronomic quality via the increase in soil organic matter content and the associated soil microbial biomass and activity. Yet, there is a wide gap in our understanding of the microbial mechanisms involved and of the manner in which the biological properties of the compost affect the microbial activity in the treated soil and the related effects on the soil structural properties. Specifically, the bacterial versus fungal components of the soil microbial biomass will be evaluated in relation to the observed effects of compost application on soil physical stability and microbial cementing agents. Conclusions may be drawn with consequences for the selection of more effective compost types with respect to soil quality improvement.
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| Education requirements |
| Soil microbiology/Soil microbial ecology/Soil biochemistry |
| Scientific experience |
| Soil organic matter analysis, ARBUSCULAR MYCORRHIZAL FUNGI (AMF; isolation and characterization), SOIL AGGREGATION processes including the analysis of biochemical cementing agents such as glomalin- glycoprotein produced by AMF. |
| Skills |
| Very good English (oral as well as written); Much experience in laboratory work related to the topics mentioned above. |
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| Microbial ecology: plant microbe interaction |
Plant microbiome is crucial for plant growth, development and health. Our lab is using cutting edge technologies to study the interaction on the microbiome with the plant in health and disease in order to improve plant well-being.
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| Education requirements |
| PhD in microbiology or plant sciences |
| Scientific experience |
| One or more of the below: DNA and/or RNA technologies. Sequence analysis and bioinformatics. Microbiology and/or Electrochemistry. |
| Skills |
| Independence creativity and passion. Ability to work in a team |
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| Updated on: 24/09/17 13:34 |
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