Worldwide, potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the most essential agro-economically food crops. To ensure its presence throughout the year for food processors and to extend its shelf life, it should be stored in cold temperatures. Despite the benefits of storage at low temperatures, it causes undesirable phenomena; one of them is cold-induced sweetening, which reduces the quality and the commercial value of the potato tubers. In this study, the CRISPR technology ″Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats″ has been used in potato cultivar Desiree via Agrobacterium mediated transformation to edit starch phosphorylase gene that is responsible for starch degradation in cold temperature storage, after regeneration steps. The regenerated plants were used in the screening of genome editing by Sanger sequencing and the ICE program. Screening results showed that Desiree 2 (DE2), Desiree 7 (DE7) and Desiree 27 (DE27) lines have mutations in sgRNA sequence that indicated a significant reduction in reduced sugar contents of tubers after cold storage for 90 and 120 days. The reduction mean values were 29.224, 35.078 and 35.862 in DE2, DE7 and DE27 respectively after 90 days and 83.212, 56.674 and 34.109 after 120 days without visible differences in plant morphology and tubers

Dairy cattle in Sudan are traditionally fed on separate concentrate and roughage diets. Because of the high cost of forages, feeding strategies should be attempted to reduce feeding costs. A traditional dairy ration (As-fed), composed of 49% sorghum grains (SG), 29.4% groundnut seed cake (GSC), 19.6% wheat bran (WB), 1% limestone (LS) and 1% salt (NaCl), was used as a control. The test ration was a total mixed ration (TMR) composed of 40% SG, 23% groundnut seed hulls (GSH), 20% GSC, 15% WB, 1% LS and 1 % NaCl. The control traditional ration was fed at 10 Kg/cow/day together with 7 Kg sorghum chaff. Two levels of TMR were used with alfalfa hay (AH); (17 Kg TMR + 1 Kg   AH/cow/day and 15 Kg TMR + 2 Kg AH. Three cross-bred dairy cows (European x Local) were used with the feeding regimes in a 3x3 Latin square design.  Cows consumed similar amounts of DM, CP and ME and produced similar quantities of milk (P > 0.05).  TMR had no effects (P > 0.05) on the composition of milk. The cost for TMR was decreased by 19%.TMR was thus effective in reducing feeding costs without affecting milk production and composition.

Congo red (CR) is an anionic dye that is released from various industries and demonstrates a negative effect on the environment and human health. Dye`s elimination from the environment is an important challenge; therefore, the aim of this study was the application of unhydrolyzed sugarcane bagasse wastes, after acid hydrolysis, drying, grinding and including cellulose acetate to form different composite sheets. The composite sheets were applied in the 3Rs (Removal of Congo red using the composite sheet, Recover of the Congo red after removal using ethanol, and Reuse of the composite sheet many times) processes. The Congo red removal efficiency by the composite sheets was optimized using two statistical methods, One Factor at A Time (OFAT) and General Factorial Design. Afterward, isotherms models and kinetics studies were investigated; moreover, the reusability was also examined. The results exhibited that, the Congo red removal efficiency of 76.27 % was achieved for 500 ppm of the dye using the composite sheet with a concentration of 7 g/L; at a pH value of 7.0 and a contact time of 240 min. Interestingly, the composite sheets have been applied for 3Rs (Removal, Recovery, Reuse) cycles 5 times.

Potato tuber starch characteristic is influenced by the ratio of amylose to amylopectin, which is affected by the granule-bound starch synthase (GBSS) gene. GBSS gene expression was decreased in the leaves of the Desiree potato variety utilizing genome editing using CRISPR-Cas9. Constructs encoding Cas9 gene and sgRNAs targeting GBSS gene were inserted into plant leaves using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation delivery. The results obtained lines with mutations in GBSS genes accounting for 21% of regenerated shoots. The identification of mutations within one base pair of the used guide sequence provided further evidence of the considerable similarity between the target region around the protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) position and the used guide sequence. Transforming DNA into potato leaves produced mutants that lacked the Cas9 gene. Using microscopic inspection of iodine-stained starch granules, the increase of amylopectin in the starch granules of editing potato tubers was evaluated.

The study aimed to evaluate the performance of 15 exotic indeterminate genotypes of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) to determine their suitability for cultivation under greenhouse conditions. The study material was obtained from two globally known gene banks, namely, the Center for Genetic Resources of the Netherlands and the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System (GRIN-Global) of the United States Department of Agriculture. One locally registered hybrid, Asya, was used as the control. The experimental layout was a complete randomized block design with three replications. The data collected were vegetative, flowering, and fruit characteristics as well as the number of fruits and both early and total yield per plant. High significant differences were observed among the exotic genotypes and control for all the studied attributes. The mean control values of fruit weight, firmness and pericarp thickness were significantly high, and several of the exotic genotypes exceeded the control values for vegetative, flowering, and yield characteristics under study. The genotypes coded as G.21 (Allround), G.18 (Alicante), G.6 (Marsol), G.7 (Harzer Kind) and G.3 (Robar) are promising for their overall performance in the total yield per plant and can be recommended for further exploitation to produce hybrids.

Tamarix nilotica is a perennial halophyte growing naturally at the Mediterranean coastal salt marshes. Vegetative parts were collected in two successive winters and summers to investigate the seasonal effects on the ecomorphological and physiological responses of T. nilotica. The results indicated that either in winter or summer seasons, T. nilotica can reduce the effect of soil salinity by excreting salts outside its body through salt glands. Summer season was characterized by low content of soil moisture (due to rare rainfall), high soil EC, high light intensity and high temperature; there-fore, plant induced certain morphoanatomical changes in leaves and stem to face the previously mentioned adverse conditions. The most remarkable changes to reduce transpiration process was found by decreasing leaf area and increasing cuticle thickness and mesophyll tissue thickness. In addition, the most marked physiological changes in summer were the significant in-crease in total phenols, proline, free amino acids and total soluble sugars. These compounds can work as osmotic regulators and/or antioxidants. These features enhance the defensive mechanism against dehydration and permit T. nilotica to tolerate the stress conditions in salt marsh habitat.

The present study evaluated the ability of different extracts of cinnamon and black cumin seeds to inhibit the growth of the phytopathogenic fungus Rhizoctonia solani and its extracellular cell wall degrading enzymes. Concentrations of 300 and 450 ppm of methylene chloride and hexane extracts of cinnamon completely inhibited the growth of R. solani after 72 hours of incubation at 25±1°C in vitro. Methylene chloride or hexane extracts of black cumin seeds at 4000 ppm after 72 hours inhibited the growth of R. solani by 37 and 39% respectively. Moreover, black cumin seed hexane extract at 2000 ppm inhibited 55% and 38% of the activity of pectin lyase (PL) and polygalacturonase (PG) respectively. In addition, the methanolic extract of black cumin seeds at 2000 ppm exhibited a significant reduction of exo-protease activity (74.8%). GC-MS analysis results showed that linoleic acid is the main component of the fixed oil fraction of black cumin seed hexane extract while (E) cinnamaldehyde is the main component in both hexane and methylene chloride extracts of cinnamon. HPLC-MS analysis of black cumin seeds methanolic extract showed that amentoflavone was the main component. Docking was used to identify the major component interaction with pectin lyase A and exo-protease.

The efficiency of three different types of pollen-collection traps namely, Front Drawer Pollen Traps (Type, 1), Bottom Pollen Traps (Type,2) and Plastic Slide Traps (Type,3) were evaluated. The data indicated that in type 2, which had Bottom Pollen Traps, a significantly high amount of bee pollen was collected (383.30g/colony) followed by type 1, (179.37g/colony) while type 3 had the lowest amount of collected bee pollen (123.80 g/colony). The highest amount of bee pollen collected during summer was from type (2) during 20 -29 July, followed by that from the same group during the periods 1-10 July and 9-18 August, and then type (1) during the peri-od 20-29 July. The results also revealed that the lowest amount of bee pollen collected by the traps was during the last week of August and September.

A pot study was conducted to investigate the potential of alfalfa for phytoremediation of soil artificially contaminated with different concentrations of Pb and Cd and their combinations. Harvested plants were divided and used for two purposes: (1) separation into roots and shoots, which were digested to determine N, P, K, Pb and Cd concentrations, and (2) the use of fresh shoots to prepare alfalfa extract representing each treatment. Subsequently, lettuce seedlings were grown in the same pots with the same soil and without adding fertilizers; the alfalfa shoot extract prepared from each treatment was added to the treatment itself. Lettuce crops harvested after 67 days from transplanting were divided into roots and shoots which were digested to determine the previously studied elements. In addition, soil samples were collected after harvesting alfalfa and lettuce plants and prepared for chemical analyses. Results showed that alfalfa is an effective accumulator plant for the phytoremediation of Pb- and Cd-contaminated soils. In addition, using the alfalfa shoot extract to fertilize lettuce crops was beneficial to their growth without any risk of translocation of heavy metals. Thus, we recommend adding alfalfa to crop rotations, especially where soils are contaminated with heavy metals.

DNA barcoding is a valuable tool for molecular identification of plant materials, which is primarily employed to guarantee the nature and therapeutic value of all available medicinal plants. Identification is crucial for the illegal medicinal plant trade, safe use, and preventing adulteration. In this study, DNA barcoding was used to evaluate and confirm the identification of some medicinal plants from the El-Omayed Biosphere Reserve (OBR). Two DNA regions, rbcL and ITS were selected due to their universality, ease of amplification and sequencing, and ability to identify taxa at the generic and species levels. The ITS region demonstrated a higher capacity for species discrimination power than the rbcL region. It assisted in identifying four of eight plants more precisely than rbcL. Together, ITS and rbcL could be used for plant species identification, conservation, and trade control of valuable plant resources.