Israel is a global warming hot spot, meaning the average yearly temperature is rising in Israel double than the global rise. This already has visible significant effects on the spread and damage caused by mites, specifically TSSM. We conduct several studies in the lab to test the effect of heat exposure on the performance of TSSM on various hosts. We hope to isolate plant genes that allow better resistance or resilience of the plant to TSSM in warm field conditions.

As part of a collaboration with Dr. Michal Lieberman-Lazarovich's lab, we test a collection of tomato inbred lines to identify genes in tomato that enable TSSM resistance when plants are grown in hot conditions.

Finally, We have several parallel field experiments in several location in Israel to examine the success of commercial vegetable crop variants against TSSM in hot conditions under various Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs.