Michael Baum

Michael Baum
Acting - Deputy Director General for Research/Research Team Leader - Breeding and Scaling Improved Varieties of dryland cereals and pulses / Morocco Research Platform Manager

Dr. Michael Baum is director of ICARDA’s Biodiversity and Crop Improvement Program, which comprises 30 scientists and 67 technical staff whose work ranges from crop breeding and cereal and legume pathology to virology and pollinators. Since joining ICARDA in 1992 as a biotechnologist, he has overseen ICARDA’s biodiversity and crop management work in a number of countries across the Middle East and North Africa.

Dr. Baum has been instrumental in establishing ICARDA’s partnerships with global research institutes, including the Centre for Biotechnology in Tunisia; Hannover and Frankfurt University in Germany; Cornell University in the United States; the Australian Center for Plant Functional Genomics; and other CGIAR centers. He has attracted over $10 million in funding to build ICARDA’s biotechnology program and strengthened biotech research across the dry areas.

Dr. Baum has published over 110 peer-reviewed journal articles, 30 book chapters, and 40 conference papers. He was also guest professor at Ghuangzhou University, China, between 2009 and 2012, and received the ‘Frosty Hill Fellowship’ from Cornell University in 2000. Throughout his career, he has supervised scores of post-doctoral fellows and Ph.D. students. Dr. Baum holds a Ph.D. in plant breeding and cytogenetics from the University of Göttingen in Germany.

Michael Baum's Publications

Book Chapter
January 24, 2024

In 2020, more than 800 million people suffered from hunger, and this number will continue to rise as the world’s population increases, in addition to heightening the consequences of climate change and the probability of increasing the risk of wars...

Journal Article
April 07, 2022

Legumes, members of the Fabaceae/Leguminosae family, are the third largest family of higher
plants with almost 20,000 species belonging to 650 genera, and are ubiquitous all over the
world. Among all legumes, pulse crops or food legumes fall into the...

Journal Article
October 05, 2020

Over the past 70 years, the world has witnessed extraordinary growth in crop productivity, enabled by a suite of technological advances, including higher yielding crop varieties, improved farm management, synthetic agrochemicals, and agricultural...

Book
December 04, 2019

Wheat is the most widely adapted crop, growing in diverse environments ranging from sea
level to regions as high as 4570 m.a.s.l. in Tibet (Percival, 1921) and from the Arctic Circle
to the equator, but most suitably at the latitude range of 30°...

Journal Article
September 30, 2019

Soil salinity is a major threat to crop production worldwide. The global climate change is further accelerating the process of soil salinization, particularly in dry areas of the world. Increasing genetic variability of currently used wheat varieties...

Journal Article
September 24, 2018

Faba bean is an important legume crop because of its high‐yield potential and nutrition‐dense grains. There have been significant achievements in faba bean improvement in the last four decades, which led to the doubling of the global yield average...

Book Chapter
September 14, 2016

Wheat is one of the most important staple crops of global food and nutritional security. The demand for wheat has been increasing substantially with the increasing human population pressure. Wheat genetic resources including crop wild relatives (CWRs...

Book
August 26, 2016

Wheat is a major source of calories and protein for consumers in developing countries. The “Green Revolution” improved the national food security and welfare of the poor in developing countries in the second half of the 20th century. However...

Book Chapter
July 31, 2016

Wheat is the principal staple food in most countries of the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region, accounting for 45% of the region’s per capita calorie intake with an average wheat consumption of about 200 kg/capita/year, which is...

Journal Article
April 23, 2013

جرت عمليات المسح الحقلي لمرض ذبول العدس في معظم مناطق انتشار و زراعة العدس في سورية خلال موسمي 2008 / 2009 و 2009 / 2010، بهدف تحديد أماكن انتشار المرض و العوامل المؤثرة في تطوره.

و قد بينت النتائج انتشار المرض في جميع المحافظات التي تزرع العدس خلال...

Journal Article
July 31, 2011

Genomic tools and genetic mapping are assisting the understanding of the lentil genome and have made possible the use of marker assisted selection for breeding purposes. Although some important traits are conferred by single genes most are determined...

Journal Article
August 03, 2007

Identifying barley genomic regions influencing the response of yield and its components to water deficits will aid in our understanding of the genetics of drought tolerance and the development of more drought tolerant cultivars. We assembled a...

Journal Article
May 01, 1999

Radiation-frost injury is an important abiotic constraint to lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) production in West Asia, but no information has been published on the inheritance of radiation-frost injury in lentil. The objectives of the study were to...