“Root of the Matter” Vision: A Knowledge Center for Leveraging the Root Zone for Modern Agriculture
The
main
objective of the "Root of the Matter" Knowledge Center is
to serve as an umbrella organization that unites and incorporates a number of research
projects focusing on the root zone of agricultural crops, with an emphasis on
grafted vegetables. The “Root of the Matter” Knowledge Center addresses novel research
questions, from the biological fields of physiology, genetics, microbiology and
metabolomics, whose solutions require multi-disciplinary, integrative R&D
work by several different research groups.
This knowledge will
be used to leverage Israeli research capabilities and will be applied by pioneering
companies for the benefit of local agronomists, as well as in agricultural operations
worldwide. The tools and the knowledge that will be developed can propel
Israeli R&D into a leadership position in the field of root zone research, which
will enable sustainable agriculture that is adapted to the predicted increase
in both world population and food demands, alongside climate and environmental
changes.
In order to achieve
this goal, the "Root of the Matter" program brings leading
researchers from different research fields and from three research institutes (The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Agricultural
Research Organization) together with researchers from local R&D centers and
leading Israeli agro-technology companies.
The “Root of the Matter"
Knowledge Center comprises three research projects. One is a long-term (six years)
and the others are short term (three years). Project A focuses on
building a system to test the tolerance of roots and to find optimal scion–rootstock
combinations, through measuring these grafted crops’ morphological-metabolic–molecular
and physiological performances and testing their adaptation to arid lands. In
this long-term project, experiments are conducted on common platforms used for both
continuous and non-continuous monitoring of the root zone of tolerant
rootstocks with the addition of biological growth intensifiers. Project B
focuses on the development of decision-making based on monitoring and models in
order to achieve optimal agricultural production in relation to the economic
input. Project C works on developing microbial solutions and testing the
efficiency of their implementation using an irrigation system for the
improvement of crop and plant tolerance.