The current research aimed to investigating the current situation of the research stations of Desert Research Center and possibility of achieving its roles in the development of the Desert communities, identifying barriers facing and badly affect its role from the viewpoint of its employees, in addition to identifying the current and expected role of these stations from the viewpoints of the surrounded farmers. Thirty six research stations’ employees represent about 32.7% of the total number of employees were selected from the studied research stations. In addition to twenty surrounded farmer were selected belonging to each station with a total number of 80. The research depends on the description approach to achieve its objectives. Frequencies, percentages, average, and weighted average were used for result presentation and analysis.      The main results were   1-   Lack of efforts for employees’ trainings that could affect their role in developing the desert communities they working in. 2-   There are several barriers faced the studied research stations and the employees suggests several points to overcome these barriers. 3-   More than two thirds of respondents (67.5%) were located in low and medium level of the role, that represent the low role of the studied research stations in the development of desert communities 4-   There are several activities and services were expected by the surrounded farmers that could activate the stations’ developmental roles. At the end, based on the research findings, four recommendations were formulated to activation the research stations’ role s in serving and development of desert communities.

Susceptibility of the tomato leaf miner, Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera : Gelechiidae) larvae, pupae and adults to entomopathogenic nematode, Steirnernema carpocapsae and two fungal species; Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae was investigated under laboratory conditions. Applied concentrations against the last instar larvae and different ages of the pupae, using leaf and soil treatments, were 250, 500,1000 IJs/ml for the nematode and 108, 109,1010 spores/ml for the fungi. Soil applications of the nematode and fungi resulted to high mortality (100, 100 and 93.3%) of4thinstar larvae while low pupal mortality (46.7,30and 23.3% ),respectively. In leaf treatment a high level of larval mortality (93.3, 90 and 80%) was recorded revealing S. carpocapsae, B. bassiana and M. anisopliae, respectively. The present study also showed also susceptibility of Tuta absoluta adults to the three pathoens. The results demonstrated suitability of entomopathogenic nematode and fungi for controlling T. absoluta.

The safe re-use of wastewater for agriculture is a desired goal in many arid zone countries. The potential of greywater as alternative irrigation source for vegetable crops was investigated. Tomato, pea and cantaloupe plants were drip irrigated with both fresh Nile water and greywater to access the impact on yield production and associated environmental and health risks. The biological properties of the two different sources of water clearly indicated that greywater was extremely higher in bacterial content compared with fresh Nile water. Pea plants showed significantly higher yield irrigated with fresh Nile water, however, tomato and cantaloupe plants gave significantly higher yield irrigated with greywater. Generally, the coliform populations in untreated greywater irrigated plants were higher than those irrigated with Nile water in all tested vegetables. The percentages of increasing in total coliform in untreated-irrigated greywater vegetables were 27.95%, 34.55% and 41.4% for pea, tomato and cantaloupe (averaged over outer and inner fruit tissues), respectively. Unexpectedly, central part of fruits for pea and tomato had highest coliform counts when compared to the outer surface using both Nile and untreated greywater. Overall, irrigation with greywater increased soil bacterial content by 15% while fresh Nile water increased it by 13% at the end of the experiment. In addition, greywater elevated the content of soil total coliform by 52% where fresh Nile water increased it by 30%. The results of this study indicated that untreated greywater should not consider as an alternative irrigation source for edible crops such as vegetables. In current investigation, the beneficial effects in tomato through giving significantly higher yield with greywater became worthless after the enormous fecal contamination that was detected in fruits. Several considerations must be adopted to minimize the health and environmental risks associated with greywater reuse in irrigation of vegetable crops.

The experiments were conducted at the farm of Al-Alamia located at Nubaria- Egypt, in plastic houses (6m x 45m) where solanaceous crops have been grown as monoculture, and aimed to evaluate the soil solarization in combination with benefit microorganisms for controlling the pepper soil borne pathogens and weeds under plastic-house condition. Supplementation of organic matter in plastic-houses resulted in noticeable increase in fungal, bacterial and nematode counts. However, the population densities of total fungi,Fusaria, total bacteria, spore former bacteria, actinomycetes and nematodes after 15 and 30 days in the solarized plastic-houses were drastically reduced as compared tonon solarized control soil. This reduction was gradually increased depended on the time of sampling (after 15 days of transparent polyethylene mulching or after 30 days). Soil solarization reduced sharply free nitrogen fixers, 30 days after treatment the elimination of the Azotobacter spp. and Azospirillum spp. from soil was recorded. However, the free nitrogen fixers were found to be recolonized after one month from transplanting the seedling pepper plants in non solarized and solarized soil, so artificial inoculation of pepper seedlings with strains of Azotobacter sp. and Azospirillum sp., were resulted great root colonization of plants than in non-solarized soil. Also, all annual weeds have been controlled with soil solarization which gave the best weed control treatment. On the other hand, solarization had pronounced effect on seedling establishment occurred in solarized plastic-houses. Increasing more than 30% in establishment of pepper seedling were recorded between the solarized and non-solarized plastic-houses which mulched with black sheets after three weeks of pepper transplanting.  The percentage of Phytophthora spp. isolated from the infected pepper seedlings were very high compared with other fungi, it was 49% of total isolated fungi after one week of transplanting. However, soil solarization increased pepper plant height and number of branches per plant as compared with non-solarized soil without black mulching or with black mulching. The pepper yield per plastic house up to 7 months increased with soil solarization by about 216 Kg, 18.3% over non solarized with black mulching, and 155 Kg, 12.4% over non solarized without mulching.