Jonathan Gressel (born October 30, 1936, in Cleveland, Ohio) is an Israeli agricultural scientist and Professor Emeritus at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

[2] Gressel is a "strong proponent of using modern genetic techniques to improve agriculture" especially in third world and developing countries such as Africa.

[1] Jonathan Ben Gressel were born on October 30, 1936, in Cleveland, Ohio, US, and immigrated to Israel with his family,[2] making aliyah in 1950 at the age of 14.

[6] Two-thirds of the food eaten by the human population comes from just four main plant species: wheat, rice, maize, and soybeans.

[1] Gressel and Segel's earliest models are relatively simple, and tend to predict pessimistic outcomes for the evolution and management of resistance.

[13][10][11][12] In 1991, Gressel reported a number of characteristics that tend to be associated with plants that develop herbicide resistance: 1) Herbaceous annuals 2) Self-fertile 3) Found in agricultural habitats 4) Colonisers 5) High reproductive capacity 6) Complex genetic variability (polymorphic phenotypes)[9][14] Assuming that a heritable variation of a trait occurs in a population, the rate at which it evolves will depend on the mode of inheritance of the traits, and intensity of selection in the population.

[9][15] Gressel has extensively studied weed control practices, with particular attention to developing countries where farmers may not have the resources to buy and use expensive herbicides.

[18][19] These weeds are particularly important in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, where they can cause farmers to lose half their potential yield and cause long-term environmental damage.

PCR (polymerase chain reaction) based techniques would be used to create, assign and identify nucleotide sequences that can be recognized by universal primers.

There are a variety of reasons to use biobarcodes, including protection of patented organisms, detection of transgenics, and tracking of the dispersal of genetic materials.

[27] "While these crop-specific chapters abundantly display Gressel's vast knowledge of genetics, molecular biology, agronomy, and plant breeding, his approach engages the reader with the style of a mystery novel.

Each presents a set of genetic puzzles, or surprising and unexpected molecular events, which in the end are deftly resolved with an insight worthy of Sherlock Holmes.