Academic curator of the plant collection, faculty member at the Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics at the Faculty of Agriculture.

The general topic that I dealt with during most of my years at the university is the evolution of cultural crops in the Near East, including various aspects related to the domestication of those plants in the Neolithic period. Most of the studies were conducted on sourdough (hummus) and peas.

Today I am researching the domestication syndrome and evolution of Vicia ervilia which is one of the first crops to be domesticated in the Near East and is mainly used to feed animals. It is mainly suitable for areas with little precipitation and therefore is not an important crop in Europe and North America and does not receive research attention. In my current work, I am trying with my partners to shed light on various aspects concerning the domestication of the plant, the origin of the captive stock and what are the features that were determined by the ancient domesticators.

We intend to use Vicia ervilia sheets deposited in the university herbarium to characterize the genetic diversity that existed in the fields of traditional farmers in Israel at the beginning of the twentieth century compared to the current situation, where the plant is only found as a remnant growth in the frontier areas of the Judean and Samaria deserts.