This research study was carried out in the plant tissue culture laboratory of the Agricultural Botany Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Shoubra El-khaima, Cairo, Egypt. Experiments were executed for the duration of two consecutive years 2017 and 2018 on chicory plant. Chicory (Cichorium intybus L.), which belongs to Asteraceae family, is considered as an important medicinal plant due to the presence of many bioactive substances such flavonoids, phenolic compounds, alkaloids, steroids, terpenoids, including( coumarines, cichoriin, esculetin, inulin, sesquiterpene lactones, chicoric acid, caffeic acid and some vitamins). In this research in vitro experiments were carried out using full strength Murashige and Skoog basal medium (MS) supplemented with different combinations of two plant growth regulators; Indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) including two concentrations (0.5 – 2.0 mg/l) and Naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) comprising four concentrations (0.5 – 2.0 – 3.0 – 5.0 mg/l). An abaxially (lower side) leaf explants (square pieces 0.5 × 0.5 cm) which were taken from 20 days old aseptic chicory seedlings were inoculated to (MS) surface. Initially, chicory seeds were aseptically germinated on half-strength MS medium, after surface sterilization by 70 % (v/v) ethanol for 60 seconds then soaking in 10 % Clorox (0.5% sodium hypochlorite NaOCl) for 10 min to produce the aseptic chicory seedlings which were the source of true leaf explants used in this research study. Total phenolic compounds and flavonoids content were extracted from six-week C. intybus friable callus produced under both light and dark in vitro culture conditions inside a growth chamber incubation room where temperature was adjusted at 25oC ±1. Total phenolic compounds and flavonoids were determined by spectrophotometric methods. The highest values for their contents were from chicory calli when MS callus induction medium was supplemented with 2 mg/l NAA under total dark condition when compared with the other remaining growth regulator treatment combinations and alternative light regime conditions.

Despite the role of the agricultural sector in the Egyptian national economy, the agricultural production falls short of total consumption needs in Egypt, which led to start thinking to intensify the production of food by vertical expansion beside conventional agriculture through the use of modern technologies, such as aquaponics as soilless agriculture, which the Egyptian farmers are not familiar with, so the paper aims to evaluate the proposed  aquaponics projects in terms of economic assessment, financial assessment, SWOT analysis and to identify the level of technology adoption of the  aquaponics agriculture and from which information sources they obtain their knowledge and to identify the requirements of dissemination of aquaponics technology and the most important problems  facing them and proposals to solve. The research methodology used for achieving our objective was based on some statistical and financial tools, such as percentages, correlation, and regression model, as well as the feasibility study for the aquaponics agriculture, where the paper concluded the following results: - The main source of information for the aquaponics derived from the Central Laboratory for Agricultural Climate at the Ministry of Agriculture. -  Most of the respondents belong to the low adoption category with the impact of the exposure degree to information sources and the risk willingness on the degree of adoption of the Aquaponics technology. - The results showed that the payback period of the second category projects is shorter than the first and third category projects. - By comparing the IRR with the alternative opportunity to invest at a discount rate of 23% and 25% showed the project's ability to bear the adverse changes.  - By comparing the return on investment (ROI), the internal rate of return (IRR) and the Payback period (PBP) between the three categories, the second category projects has been proved and better results achieved at the level of the financial measures used. - Comparison of break-even analysis of the three categories shows that the second category achieves the common break-even point in terms of quantity and value before the first and third categories. - The most important problems faced the adopters of aquaponics were the interruption of electricity and high-risk rate significantly when implement the aquaponics project and the lack of funding for the implementation of the aquaponics project and the lack of knowledge of responders about who can resort to them to design and supervision of the aquaponics units. - The most important proposals to overcome such problems are raising farmers awareness of the need to provide generators in sufficient numbers to use in the event of power outages and the interest of the authorities responsible for training courses for farmers on the aquaponics and to inform them of the schedule of these courses and provide brochures and booklets on the aquaponic technology and offer Facilitator loans to farmers to finance aquaponics projects and educating farmers about the most important entities where they can resort to them to designing and supervising aquaponic units.

Investment is one of the most important tools of the economic and social development plans in order to achieve its objectives. The success of development policies depends on several factors, including the volume of investments and the efficiency of their distribution in different fields. This requires that the investment plans and programs set in line with the state's ability to use these investments effectively. Agricultural investment is one of the basic means for the success of agricultural development as it is the main basis for increasing production as well as increasing income and creating more job opportunities and investment is a variable variable has an effective role in finding solutions to the problems of the economy sucking As well as absorbing a measure of manpower that is not working, thus contributing to reducing the problem of unemployment, and increasing the government agricultural investment, which opens the way for private investments in the form of productive projects that contribute to increase production and thus increase exports and reduce imports, thus improving the agricultural balance and increasing national and individual income. Which is reflected in the increase in savings, which in turn lead to the creation of new investments. It can be said that the strategy of agricultural development in Egypt aims to encourage and increase rates of investment growth, whether public investment owned by the state or private investment contributes to increase production And of improving the investment required for the projects of  infrastructure and this leads to increased investment activities by adding new projects within the economic structure. The strategy of agricultural  development in Egypt aims to encourage and increase the rates of investment growth whether it is a public investment owned by the state or other sectors that contribute to the productivity of the private sector and the infrastructure necessary for the production projects. This leads to increase the investment activities by adding new productive projects that diversify the production base Within the economic structure, despite the successive economic changes experienced by the Egyptian economy, there is still a slowdown in the advancement of government agricultural investments with a clear and significant decline in investments directed to Compared to agricultural sectors obeyed other than the impact is clearly on the performance of the agricultural sector and thus lower rates of agricultural development in Egypt. From the above, the total agricultural investment equation shows that this investment increased by 0.21%, 0.54%, 0.52% for each 1% increase in both agricultural and agricultural exports in the previous year and agricultural income in the previous year, respectively, while decreasing Total agricultural investment by about 0.91% and 0.23% for each increase in agricultural balance deficit and exchange rate by 1%. In other words, the most important variables affecting agricultural investment in a given year were the agricultural GDP of the previous year, the value of agricultural income, and agricultural exports. The statistical significance of this relationship was found at 0.05, and the significance of the model as a whole was found to be around 79% of the changes in the investment to the aforementioned factors.

Two field experiments were conducted on clay loam soil during the two successive seasons, summer season 2017 using maize plants and winter season 2017/2018 using barley plants at El-Gemmeiza Agricultural Research Station, El-Gharbia Governorate to evaluate the direct and residual effects of compost rates mixed with the surface soil layer to 10 cm or added in 30 cm mole depth, arranged in parallel orientation with respect to one another and spaced at 3 m apart besides the nitrogen fertilizer rates on improving some soil chemical properties. Furthermore economical analysis was done by calculating the net income for every treatment to determine the economical treatment. The rates of compost were 0.0, 2.5, 5.0 and 7.5 Ton fed-1, while the nitrogen rates were 0.0, 50, 75 and 100 % of the recommended dose for every growing crop. The experiments were conducted in a split-split plot in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replicates. Results can be summarized as follows: 1- All treatments slightly decreased the soil reaction (pH) in the two growing seasons. 2- Soil salinity (EC), soluble cations and anions and total soluble salts (TSS) significantly increased by increasing nitrogen or compost rates and significantly decreased by increasing application depth. On the other hand, SAR values were significantly decreased with all treatments. 3- All treatments led to significant increases in Ex. Ca, Mg, K and cation exchange capacity (CEC), whereas Ex. Na and ESP were significantly decreased with all treatments in the two seasons. 4- All treatments clearly enhanced total nutrients (N. P and K) of the investigated soil. Also, Organic carbon (O.C, %) and C/N ratio were significantly increased with all treatments. 5- According to the economical analysis, the application of 5 ton compost fed-1 in 30 cm mole depth with 100 % the recommended dose of nitrogen fertilizer for every crop was the best treatment compared with the other treatments, since it gave the highest net income (16809.80 L.E fed-1). 6- Therefore, it is more useful to use those treatments (compost rates at 30cm mole depth with nitrogen fertilizer) to get a markedly improve in chemical properties which reflect on higher yield.

The current investigation was planned to apply some biotic and abiotic treatments singlely and/or combined to control bacterial soft rot diseases of lettuce under field conditions in Qaha region, Qalyubia Governorate, Egypt. The application of resistance inducers (jasmonic acid and salicylic acid), antibiotics (norfloxacin and tetracycline) and bio-agents (isolates of B. subtilis and Ps. fluorescens) significantly reduced the disease severity as a single treatment compared to the control treatment. Obtained results indicated that resistance inducers appeared to be most effective against bacterial soft rot disease of lettuce compared with other treatments, while antibiotics were less effective at controlling the disease. However, the interaction between bio-agents as soil drench treatment, antibiotics, or resistance inducers as foliar treatment significantly reduced the severity of lettuce bacterial soft rot disease compared with the control treatment. Furthermore, the interaction between disease severity was more reducted with interaction treatments between Ps. fluorescens isolate rather than interact with treatments between B. subtilis isolate and other treatments. However, the interaction between the isolate of Ps. fluorescens as bio-agent treatment or norfloxacin as antibiotic or salicylic acid as a plant resistance inducer, were the most effective methods to control the disease compared with other treatments. Meanwhile, the interaction between resistance inducers and antibiotics as foliar treatments were significantly reduced from the severity of lettuce bacterial soft rot disease compared with the control treatment. Disease severity was more reduced with the application of interaction between norfloxacin and resistance inducers than the interaction between tetracycline and resistance inducers. Meanwhile, the severity of the disease decreased more with the application of interaction between salicylic acid and antibiotics than the interaction between jasmonic acid and antibiotics. Generally, all combination treatments were more efficient than single treatments alone to significantly manage the spread and the infection of the disease compared to the untreated control.

Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici attacks tomato plants and causes wilt disease. Fusarium Pathogenicity is including pectinases enzymes which enable the Fungal penetration into host cell wall. The present study is focused on using Computational tools such as Auto-Dock program for screening of inhibitors of endo and exopolygalacturonase enzymes. It based on Lamarckian Genetic Algorithm (LGA) that estimate the binding energy and inhibition constant as parameters to select the best binding. The binding energy and amino acids interactions for the selected inhibitors were compared with that of the enzyme substrate (polygalacturonic acid) Allium species such as onion plant have been used widely as antimicrobial and antifungal plants. It contains  ranged  between 1 and 5 %  of non-protein sulfur amino-acids, including SE-Prop-1-enyl-L-cysteine S-oxide, S-3Allylsulphinyl-L-alanine and S-Methylcysteine sulfoxide have satisfactory binding interactions and inhibition constant with endo and exopolygalacturonase. In the present study, these compounds were extracted from white onion bulb Giza 20 and detected in the onion extract LC/MS analysis. The Inhibitory effect of these compounds for exopolygalacturonase enzyme was confirmed experimentally by determination of the enzyme activity in the presence and the absence of these compounds. White onion extract 45% inhibition percentage of the exopolygalacturonase activity. The enzyme kinetic study showed increase in the Km value with  stable V-max value in presence of 7µg/µL of  the onion extract. Also, In-vitro experiment of inhibition of F. oxysporum growth in presence 20% and 40% of onion extract showed inhibition percentages of 47% and 53% respectively. The results concluded that onion extract inhibits Fusarium growth through inhibition of exo and endo polygalacturonase. The inhibitory effect of onion extract could be due to its contents of S-E-Prop-1enyl-L-cysteine S-oxide, S-3-Allylsulphinyl-Lalanine and S-Methylcysteinesulphoxide, these compounds have excellent binding interactions and inhibition effects on both exo- and endopolygalacturonases enzymes of Fusarium   oxysporum f. sp. Lycopersici

Rhizoctonia solani is considered one of the most harmful pathogens affecting green bean productivity. Phaseolus vulgaris, L. cv. paulista seeds were subjected to UV-C for 60 min. and/or immersed in glycine betaine (GB, 5 mM) for 24 hours to stimulate plant biochemical defenses against R. solani. After treatments, seeds were sown in soil infested with R. solani, then seedling samples were collected after two weeks to evaluate plant resistance and some antioxidant enzymes activities. The results clearly demonstrated that disease index (DI) was highly reduced by GB (54.7%) followed by UV+GB (38.3%) and UV (35.6%). Seed treatment with UV-C for 60 min or GB (5 mM) for 24 h alone or together enhanced plant rooting in infected seedlings comparing with control. Also, there was a high correlation between the levels of lipid peroxidation and Rhizoctonia root rot disease index. Seed treated with UV-C, GB or both mitigated the effect of infection on the lipid peroxidation (Malondialdehyde levels) with percentages of 26.8, 40.2 and 29.3% respectively in comparison with the infected control. Regarding to the plant defensive enzymes, GB was the only treatment that triggered a significant increment in the superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity in roots of both infected and non-infected seedlings as compared to the control. On the other hand, guaiacol peroxidase (G-POD) and polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activities were elevated by all treatments in infected plant roots in comparison with control. The maximum activity for G-POD was attained with UV treatment (9042.5 U.mg-1 protein) followed by GB+UV, GB and infected control with values of 7776.5, 7152.4 and 6508.8 U.mg-1 protein, respectively. Similarly, PPO exhibited higher activities with significant differences in all treatments over the infected control with percentages of 54, 59.4 and 48.7% for UV, GB and UV+GB respectively. Finally, it can be concluded that treatment of green bean seeds with UV-C and GB enhanced green bean seedlings tolerance to R. solani by activation of the antioxidant enzymes and activation of defense-related enzymes like polyphenol oxidase. The results of combination of UV-C and GB treatments indicated the absence of synergetic effects in induction of plant tolerance.

The field experiment was carried out during the two growing seasons of 2013-2014 and 2014-2015, at the farm of Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Shoubra El-Kheima, Egypt, to investigate the effect of irrigation after the depletion of different available soil water levels, soil conditioner, foliar application of glycine betaine and potassium silicate on vegetative growth and chemical composition of garlic (Allium sativum L.), cv. Sids-40 under water stress conditions. The experimental treatments were arranged in a split split plot design, with three replicates Irrigation levels were conducted after the depletion of 60%, 75% and 90% of available soil water in the main plots. Irrigation treatments were started six weeks from planting, soil conditioner at the rates of 2 m3/Fed and control were distributed in the sub-plots. Foliar applications of glycine betaine was used at 2 mM/Land potassium silicate was used at 0.5 g /L, after 50, 65, 80, 95, 110, 125 and 140 days respectively, from planting compared with control were devoted in the sub-sub plots. The results indicated thatthe irrigation after depletion of 60 % available soil water with applying soil conditioner and glycine betaine or potassium silicate increased the Plant lengthof garlic after 150 days from planting. Bulb diameterand nitrogen contentshowed significant increase as a result of irrigation after depletion of 60 % available soil water with applying soil conditioner in addition to the foliar application ofglycine betaine.Prolin content was significantly increased as a result of irrigation after depletion of 90 % available soil water without applying soil conditioner with the foliar application of distilled water (control).Whereas, the lowest value of Prolin content appeared with irrigation after depletion of 60 % available soil water with applying soil conditioner and foliar application of glycine betaine.Total soluble solids (TSS) andtotal Sugarsincreased significantly as a result of irrigation after depletion of 90 % available soil water without applying soil conditioner with the foliar application of glycine betaine.It was therefore concluded that vegetative growth and chemical analyses of garlic responded positively to irrigation, applying soil conditioner and foliar application of 2 mM/L glycine betaine or 0.5 g/L potassium silicate

Thirty six entries of flax (Linum usitatissmum, L.) involving eight parental genotypes and their twenty eight hybrids were evaluated for straw yield and its related traits in the F1 during (2015/2016) and F2 populations during (2016/2017) under early (F2D1) and late (F2D2) sowing dates (two environments) in the Agricultural Research Station, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams Univ., Shalakan, Kalubia Governorate. Mean squares due to genotypes, parents and crosses were highly significant for straw yield, plant height, technical stem length, fiber yield/plant, fiber percentage, fiber length and fiber fineness in the F1 and F2 generations (at early and late sowing dates), indicating that parental genotypes as well as their F1 and F2 generations exhibited reasonable degree of variability for all studied traits. Highly significant variations mean performance were found for parental genotypes and hybrids for straw yield/plant and its related traits in the F1, F2D1and F2D2, indicating presence of wide genetic variability among studied genotypes. The highest mean values were recorded under all studied environments, for straw yield/plant, fiber yield/plant and fiber fineness were found by S. 402/1 genotype, while Sakha 5 gave the highest mean values for plant height, technical stem length and fiber length.  General and specific combining ability mean squares were highly significant for all studied traits in F1, F2D1 and F2D2 with the exception of a few cases, indicating the importance of both additive and non-additive gene effects in the expression of  straw yield and its components. The additive effects were more important than non-additive effects under all studied environments for straw yield/plant (except at F2D2), plant height (except at F1), fiber percentage and fineness. On the other hand, the non- additive effects were more effective than additive effects for technical stem length, fiber yield/plant and fiber length. Results showed that the parents; Giza 11and Giza 12 for straw yield/plant, Sakha 5 for plant height and fiber length, Sakha 6 for fiber yield/plant, Jowhar  for fiber percentage and S. 402/1, Sakha 2, Giza 12 and Sakha 5 for fiber fineness, these parents appeared to be the best general combiners for these traits. Some of the crosses exhibited highly significant and positive SCA effects included high x high and high x low general combiner parents, suggesting that the breeding procedure which utilize both additive and non-additive genetic variances would be more useful for improvement of straw yield and its components of flax.

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) is one of the oldest trees cultivated by human; Egypt has been ranked as the first country in the production of dates, soft, semi dry and dry date cultivars are cultivated in wide area of Egypt. Therefore, this work was carried out to determine the Glycemic Index (GI) and Glycemic Load (GL) of five Egyptian varieties of date fruit in healthy subjects. Chemical composition analysis was carried out for five types of date fruit (Partamoda, Malakabi, Saadi, Zaghluol and Samani); also, antioxidant power was determined. The study subjects were ten healthy volunteers, each subject was tested on six separate visits with 50 g of glucose and 50 g equivalent of available carbohydrates from the five date varieties. Capillary glucose was measured in the healthy subjects at 0, 30, 60 and 120 min. The GI was determined as ratios of the incremental areas under the response curves for the dates compared to glucose. Collecting data showed that Egyptian varieties of date fruit contain a good nutrients and antioxidant power. Among the five Egyptian varieties of date fruit, the chemical characteristics by moisture content in fruits was the highest in Samani date fruit and lowest in Partamoda dates; also, the five Egyptian varieties of date fruit contain available carbohydrate (7.4% - 69.2%), proteins (1.85 % - 7.0 %), total dietary fiber, TDF (11.82% - 15.63%) and Energy value (76.2 - 297.9 Kcal/100g). The antioxidant activity ranged between 52.61 and 79.12% as scavenging activity for free radicals; also, dates rich in phenols. The medium GI was recorded by Malakabi followed by Saadi and Partamoda which had high GL; while, the lowest GI was recorded for soft date fruit (Zaghluol and Samani) which had medium GL. These findings point to the potential benefits of Egyptian date fruit for healthy subjects when used in a stable healthy diet.