The chairperson of the teaching committee is: Prof. Aaron Fait.
Agriculture and Biotechnology of Drylands
The M.Sc. program in Agriculture and Biotechnology of Drylands is a two-year program.
Prerequisites:
Students without sufficient background (B.Sc. in Life Sciences, Agriculture, or Biotechnology) will be required to complete individually-prescribed courses for no academic credit, typically yet not exclusively, including the following courses or their equivalents.
Hebrew speakers can take undergrad classes at BGU or other academic institutes. Hebrew speakers might take these classes prior to their arrival or during the first year of the M.Sc. program. In case classes will be taken during the program, it should be approved by the Desert Studies: Agriculture and Biotechnology teaching committee. Non-Hebrew speakers can take these classes on academic institutes in their home countries prior to their arrival. Open online courses (i.e. Coursera) will be accepted after a certificate is provided.
The courses list: General Chemistry or Biochemistry; Cell Biology, Genetics or Applied Genetics; Plant science or Plant Physiology.
Students are required to complete the following courses during the two-year program:
| Subject | Credits |
|
Courses within the track of study:
Four core courses selected from all core courses
|
30 |
| Thesis Writing | 12 |
| Total | 42 |
This course should be taken in the 2nd or 3rd semester of your degree.
| Course # | Lecturer | Subject | Credits |
| 001-2-0153 |
Dr. Scott Hansen and Dr. Christopher J. Arnusch |
Writing a Scientific Paper | 2 |
| Course # | Lecturer | Subject | Credits |
| 001-2-2005 | Prof. Jhonathan Ephrath and Dr. Gilad Gabay | Plant Physiology Under Stress | 2 |
| 001-2-2017 | Prof. Simon Barak | Plant Perception, Transduction and Response to Environmental Signals | 2 |
| 001-2-2035 |
Prof. Naftali Lazarovitch |
Crop Irrigation Regimes |
3 |
| 001-2-2036 |
Prof. Gideon Grafi |
Molecular Biology and Epigenetics |
2 |
| 001-2-2041 |
Prof. Noemi Tel- Zur |
Plant Reproduction |
2 |
| Prof. Yaron Sitrit | Genetic and Physiological Regulation of Fruit Ripening | 2 | |
| 001-2-2059 | Prof. Shimon Rachmilevitch | Carbon Metabolism and Photosynthesis in a Changing Environment | 2 |
| 001-2-2065 |
Prof. Aaron Fait |
The Physiology and Metabolism of Fruits: Genetics Vs Environment | 4 |
Students are required to attend 4 Departmental Seminars (one seminar per semester).
| Course # | Lecturer | Subject | Credits |
| 001-2-2222 | Please check the university course file | Departmental Seminar | 0 |
Students are required to present two seminars (one student seminar per year).
| Course # | Lecturer | Subject | Credits |
| 001-2-2666 | Please check the university course file | Student Seminar (first year) | 0.5 |
| 001-2-2667 | | Student Seminar (second year) | 0.5 |
In the third and fourth semesters, students must register for Thesis Writing.
| Course # | Lecturer | Subject | Credits |
| 001-2-9991 |
Thesis Writing A |
6 | |
| 002-2-9992 |
Thesis Writing B |
6 |
Students who have completed the above Thesis Writing courses and who continue their studies for a fifth semester must register for the following course:
| Course # | Lecturer | Subject | Credits |
| 001-2-1000 |
Thesis Writing – Continuation |
0 |
| Course # | Lecturer | Subject | Credits |
| 001-2-2006 | Prof. Naftali Lazarovitch and Dr. Ran Erel | Mechanistic Approach to Plant Nutrition | 2 |
| 001-2-2015 | Prof. Dina Zilberg and Prof. Amit Gross | Introduction to Desert Aquaculture | 3 |
| 001-2-2021 | Prof. Dina Zilberg | Aquatic Animal Health | 3 |
| Prof. Dina Zilberg | Practical Fish Disease Diagnosis (A)/(B)/(C) (prerequisite: Theoretical fish diseases course) | 1 | |
| 001-2-2037 | Prof. Moshe Sagi | Guided Reading on Stress Sensing in Plants | 2 |
| 001-2-2038 | Prof. Naftali Lazarovitch | Soil Physics | 3 |
| 001-2-2039 | Prof. Naftali Lazarovitch and Prof. Jirka Šimůnek | Advanced Modeling of Water Flow and Contaminant Transport in Porous Media Using HYDRUS Software Packages | 2 |
| 001-2-2040 | Prof. Gideon Grafi | Lab Course in Epigenetics | 3 |
| 001-2-2043 | Dr. Shimon Rachmilevitch | Plant Stress Indications: Methods and Instrumentation | 2 |
| 001-2-2046 | Prof. Aaron Fait | Analysis of biological Networks | 3 |
| 001-2-2049 | Prof. Noemi Tel-Zur | Physiology, Reproduction and Use of Cactus Species | 2 |
| 001-2-2051 | Prof. Inna Khozin-Goldberg | Guided Reading on Lipid Metabolism in Plants and Microalgae | 2 |
| 001-2-2054 | Prof. Shimon Rachmilevitch | Guided Reading on Topics in the Ecophysiology of Desert Plants | 2 |
| 001-2-2060 | Dr. Nina Kamennaya and guest lecturers | History of the landuse, agriculture and domestication | 2 |
| 001-2-2062 | Prof. Robert J. Lascano (Coordinated by Dr. Nurit Agam) | Water Use Efficiency in Agriculture (Intensive Course) | 3 |
| 001-2-2063 | Dr. David Fleisher (Coordinated by Prof. Jhonathan Ephrath) | Understanding and Modeling the Major Components in Explanatory Crop Models (Intensive Course) | 3 |
| 001-2-2064 | Prof. Aaron Fait | Analysis of Biological Networks | 2.5 |
| 001-2-2066 | Prof. Aaron Fait | Metabolomics Laboratory | 2 |
| 001-2-2067 | Prof. Jhonathan Ephrath | Understanding and Modeling of Agricultural Systems | 2 |
| 001-2-2069 | Prof. Inna Khozin-Goldberg | Lipid Biochemistry of Microalgae and Plants | 3 |
| 001-2-2070 | Prof. Inna Khozin-Goldberg (Coordinator) | Biology and Biotechnology of Microalgae | 3 |
| 001-2-2071 | Prof. Vered Zin | Molecular Mechanism of Plant-Insect Interactions | 2 |
| 001-2-2074 | Prof. Aaron Fait | Viticulture in Arid and Semi-Arid Environments | 3 |
| 001-2-2075 | Prof. Ilya Gelfand | Terrestrial Biogeochemsitry | 3 |
| 001-2-2076 | Dr. Nina Kamennaya | Practical Environmental Cytometry | 2.5 |
| 001-2-2077 | Prof. Aaron Fait | Grape and Wine Science | 2.5 |
| 001-2-2078 | Prof. Noemi Tel-Zur | Principles and Practice of Microscopy | 2 |
| 001-2-2079 | Prof. Vered Zin | Chemical Ecology Spring Workshop | 2 |
| 001-2-2080 | Dr. Nina Kamennaya | Physiology of Aquatic Microbes | 3 |
| 001-2-2081 | Dr. Tarin Paz-Kagan and Dr. Tamir Caras | UAVs for environmental and agriculture research | 3 |
| 001-2-2173 | Prof. Noemi Tel-Zur | Guided Reading on Plant Breeding and Cytogenetics | 2 |
| 001-2-2203 | Dr. Gilboa Arye | Adsorption and Reactivity of Chemicals in Soils | 3 |
| 001-2-2204 | Dr. Gilboa Arye | Agriculture and Environmental Aspects in Soil Sciences | 3 |
| 001-2-2288 | Prof. Jhonathan Ephrath | Guided Reading in Understanding and Modeling of Agricultural Systems | 2 |
| 001-2-2289 | Prof. Simon Barak | Guided Reading on Molecular and Systems Biology Approaches to Plant Stress Tolerance Research | 2 |
| 001-2-2290 | Prof. Dina Zilberg | Aquatic Animal Health - Guided Reading Course | 2 |
| 001-2-2300 | Prof. Vered Zin | Guided Reading on Plant Metabolism: Authentic to Synthetic | 2 |
| 001-2-2302 |
Prof. Ilya Gelfand |
Guided Reading on Ecosystem Ecology and Biogeochemistry | 2 |
| 001-2-2303 | Dr. Gilad Gabay | Functional Genomic Approaches in Plant Breeding | 2 |
| 001-2-3034 | Prof. Bertrand Boeken | Vegetation Ecology | 3 |
| 001-2-3036 | Prof. Bertrand Boeken | Agroecology | 2.5 |
| 001-2-3047 | Prof. Merav Seifan | Global changes and the biodiversity crisis | 2 |
| 001-2-3086 | Prof. Hadas Hawlena | Microbial Ecology from the Ecologist Point of View | 3 |
| 001-2-4028 | Prof. Arnon Karnieli | Remote Sensing for Agriculture, Rangelands, and Forestry (no prerequisites required) | 3 |
| Course # | Lecturer | Subject | Credits |
| 001-2-1200 | Prof. Simon Barak & Dr. Buzi Raviv | BGU Radio Academy – Podcast production course |
2 |
| 001-2-3021 | Prof. Itamar Giladi | Biostatistics | 3 |
| 001-2-3045 | Dr. Shirli Bar-David | Conservation Genetics | 3 |
| 001-2-3079 | Prof. Ariel Novoplansky | Scientific Presentation | 2 |
| 001-2-4016 |
Dr. Leah Orlovsky |
Geography of Desertification |
2 |
| 001-2-4029 |
Prof. Yosef Ashkenazi |
Introduction to Statistical and Probability | 3 |
| 001-2-6002 | Dr. Aviva Peeters | Theory and Applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) | 3 |
