calorie crop and commercially used as a non-caloric sweetener for diabetic patients. It is also used as cosmetic ingredient, pickling agent, and dentifrice. Four cultivars (Spantia, Shou2A3, China, and High Sugar) of stevia were included to optimize in vitro micropropagation. Four different combinations of hormonal treatments were investigated [6-benzylamino purine (BAP) + Kinetin (Kin) (0.25 + 0.25 mg/l); Forchloefenuron (Cppu) + Kin (0.25 + 0.25 mg/l); Cppu+ Kin (0.5+0.25 mg/l); and the control medium (hormone-free)]. Out of the different media components, the hormone-free medium produced the best performance of explants. The analysis of variance showed that the control treatment was the most significant for all traits except the number of branches per cutting. Hardening of rooted plants was performed in plastic pots with 70% survival percentage during acclimatization. Molecular characterization, of the four stevia cultivars, was conducted using 11 SCoT primers. The SCoT analysis resulted in 122 amplicons, of which, 62 amplicons (51%) were polymorphic. The range of polymorphism was between 6 % and 91 %. The range of polymorphic amplicons per primer was between one and 12 amplicons. The SCoT-16 produced the highest number of polymorphic bands (12). Meanwhile, the SCoT-24 produced the least polymorphism (6 %). The current study provides a new micropropagation system with low cost, high efficiency, and hormone-free application. Additionally, the study provides the first molecular characterization of stevia using SCoT marker system. Finally, SCoT markers associated with cultivars having high and low contents of stevioside can further be validated by marker-assisted breeding studies.

Raw milk Domiati cheese is the main soft white pickled cheese produced in Egypt. The objective of this study was to assess the microbiological hazards, physiochemical quality and safety of some raw Domiati cheese subtypes including Double Cream, Tallaga, Baramely and Istanbully. The cheese samples were randomly collected from different cheese retailers in Cairo. The results indicated that the protein content and fat content were high in Double cream cheese. The pH value was low in Baramely cheese. Total solid, ash, and EC were high in Istanbully cheese because it is high salt level. Also, results indicated high microbiological hazards. the cheese samples were highly contaminated, having microbial load exceeding the acceptable limits such as: Total bacterial count, Total coliform, Fecal E. coli and yeast & molds. Pathogenic bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus, E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella sp., Shigella sp., Listeria monocytogenes, Bacillus cereus and Campylobacter jejuni) were detected in three cheese samples.  Except Istanbully cheese sample were found free of most pathogenic bacteria.  A high microbial load of the cheese samples present a public health hazard to the consumers and emphasize the need for improving hygienic standard. Microbiological hazards must be limited to the stander limit of food safety. Raw milk soft white cheese must be manufactured according to hygienic standard.

Red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Oliver, 1790), Order; Coleoptera, Family; Curculionidae, is considered as the biggest threat facing date palm cultivators. The larva feed on trunk tender tissue and can cause palm death within 6-8 months after infection. Insect gut harbors a community of bacteria that lives in an endosymbiotic relationship with the insect and it is strongly evident that it plays a key role in insect life. Deciphering and identification of insect microbiota could lead to the development of new symbiotiont-based control approaches. In this work we studied the diversity of the endosymbiont bacterial community of red palm weevil larval midgut in Egypt, by using Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE), based on 16S rRNA genes PCR amplification. We used three groups of field caught larva sampled from two different places; El-Badrashin and Agricultural Research Center (ARC) in Giza governorate, Egypt. DGGE profiling patterns has shown the relative prevalence of bacterial phylotypes  affiliated to family Firmicute; Leuconostoc lactis, Lactococcus lactis, Lactobacillus nagelli and bacterial phylotypes affiliated to family Actinobaceria; Cellulomonas cellasea, Bifidobacterium minimum, which suggest that they have a potential role in nutrition, physiology and immunomodulation of the insect.

The mycelial growth rate of three oyster mushroom strains namely Pleurotus erengii, P. ostreatus and P. florida was examined on six different agar media (malt extract, Potato dextrose, rose bengal, corn meal, czapek’s dox and waksman’s glucose agar media) to select the most suitable one. Effect of pH was also examined at different values (5.0, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5 and 7.0) on the selected medium. Results indicated that Malt extract agar medium was the most suitable one for mycelium growth of all the tested mushroom strains, being the highest (9 cm ) for P. erengii and P. ostreatus at pH 7 and 9 cm at pH 6 -6.5 for P. florida after 6 days of incubation. The mycelia growth of the tested oyster mushroom strains was also examined at different temperatures (15, 20, 25, 30 and 35ºC) and different levels of relative humidity (50, 65, 75, 85, 95 and 100 %) on malt extract agar medium. The highest mycelial growth rate was obtained at 25°C and relative humidity of 65% after 6 days of incubation for the three tested oyster mushrooms.

Field Experiments were conducted at the Experimental Farm, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Shoubra El-Kheima, Egypt during 2014 and 2015 seasons to evaluate the effect of foliar spray of putrescine (Put) at 0.1 and 0.2 mM on growth and some physio-biochemical compounds of drought stressed sunflower. Putrescine application could be mitigate the negative effect of drought by increasing leaf relative water content (LRWC), proline, total soluble sugars, K and Ca concentrations of sunflower leaves. Correlation coefficient revealed that LRWC was inversely proportional to proline concentration on the one hand and directly proportional to K+ and Ca++ concentrations on the other hand. The modification of physio-biochemical parameters by Put treatments led to increase plant growth and seed-oil yield of sunflower under drought stress.

Inflation is meant the overall and continuing rise in prices by the impact of internal or external variables, produced by excess demand about supply capacity. Problem of the study: The Egyptian economy has a decline in overall economic indicators, most importantly is the overall growth rate, compared with a rise in inflation, poverty, unemployment, the low production and the continuing deficit in the trade balance, and in general budget, which are negative indicators for the Egyptian economy. Therefore, the study is trying to explain and study the problem of inflation, its direct and indirect effects on overall growth rates in the Egyptian economy. Research Objectives: Identify the reality of growth rate in the Egyptian economy; identify what are inflation types and methods of measurement, measuring interaction relationships between both of inflation rates and growth rates in the Egyptian economy, determine factors afficting of both inflation and growth rates in Egypt, to work on indirect effect in these phenomena by afficting on those factors.   Results and recommendations   1-To study the effect of the most important variables of affected GDP at current and real prices in Egypt during the period (2003-2014): It turns out that study variables give effects on growth rate in real GDP at real prices consistent with economic logic, on the contrary effects of the growth rate of GDP at current prices. 2- Study interrelationships between the local annual growth rate at real and current prices and the annual inflation rate in Egypt during the period (2003-2014): It was concluded that data will be relied on real growth rate of GDP in its relations with inflation, where it is more logical from the economic point of view than the results of the GDP growth rate of GDP at current prices. 3- The relation between the inflation rate and growth rate GDP in real terms is negatively slope. 4- The results of the current economic model show that: The most important factors affecting in inflation rate and real growth rate in GDP are: First: Annual inflation rate in consumer prices (X2), it has a negative significant statistically effect for both of annual growth rate of GDP at real prices% (X6), net cash reserve (X8), and the balance of current transactions and transfers (X13). And positive significant statistically effect for both of exchange rate of the dollar declared by the Central Bank (X10), and and the total surplus (deficit) (X21). Second: Annual growth rate of GDP at real prices% (X6), it has a negative effect from, annual inflation rate in consumer prices (X2), and the exchange rate of the dollar announced by the Central Bank (X10), while the effect was statistically significant positive for both of, net cash reserve (X8), and the total surplus (deficit) (X21). 5- Best method to forcast the main variables under study of inflation rate and the real growth rate of GDP is the use of the simutianeous equation model it takes into consideration all external variables affecting the internal variables under study. It was reached by forcasting both of the Inflation rates and real GDP growth rates, that the policies followed by floating exchange rate, which requires an impact on all variables to the hoped results of the floating of the Egyptian pound.   Therefore research recommends: to re-enter the Central Bank for determining the exchange rate of the Egyptian pound against other currencies, not directly to the currency exchange rate, but by indirect intervention through supply and demand control of the currency in Egyptian market against other currencies, by intervening in the market by selling and buying direct from banks, in addition to moving external variables affecting both inflation and real growth rates in Egypt to able to reach the resalts of simulitanuos equation model which takes into account all external variables related to the study variables.

Agriculture sector is one of essential sector in the Egyptian economy. The sector is the main source of food required by Egyptian people, in addition to that the sector is also a source of row materials for many in industries.                 On the other hands, sugar cane and sugar beet crops are the main source of sugar in Egypt as well as in many other countries.                 The average sugar cane area and production were about 0.32 millon Fadden and 15.60 millon tons during the period (1995-2014). While sugar beet area was 0.21 millon fadden and 4.53 millon ton during the years (1995-2014).                 The research problem may be concentrated on that domestic sugar production is short  meeting  local  consumption  and there for the government has to fill the gap through  imports which means a burden on government budget. The shortage of domestic sugar production is mainly due to the limited area of sugar cane crop, which is mainly due to the limited agricultural land and water. The increase of population and the per capita consumption of sugar and the need to rationalize water use have made sugar production in Egypt more accurate.                 The main objective of the present research is therefore a trial to estimate farmers supply response of sugar response of sugar produced from sugar cane and sugar beet in an attempt to reduce sugar imports. The study has also tried to examine factors that may affect sugar consumption, i.e.  social  and political factors are also taken into consideration.                   The study showed that Brazil, India and China are the main producer of sugar cane, 48.32%, 29.32% and 9.31% respectively. The three countries produce together about 87% of sugar from sugar cane. On the other hand, France, USE, Germany produce together about 66% of total sugar beet.                 A study of supply response of sugar cane showed that farm price of sugar cane with two years lag and net return per Fadden with one year lag the important factors affective sugar cane production .As for sugar beet production, it was found that farm price and area with one year lag were the most important factor affecting sugar supply from sugar beet.                 The study recommends the expansion of sugar beet area particularly in the now reclaimed land in addition to of farming an encouraging price to farmers. Finally it is advisable to rationalize sugar consumption by Egyptian people.

Wheat crop is considered to be one of the most important grain crops and a major source of food for the Egyptian people. The production and economic indicators of wheat yield were studied in Egypt. It is clear that the total area and production of wheat increased by 71 thousand feddans annually and, 199 thousand tons annually, respectively, at a significant level of 0.01. The coefficient of general trend of area and production were (R2) 0.80 respectively, which means that 87%, 80% of the changes in the total area and production of wheat are due to factors whose effect reflects the time variable.                 However, the food security factor should be increased to 0.50, as the minimum level of strategic stock security is achieved when the stock meets the needs of the population for at least 6 months. Which is estimate at  6.850 million tons during the period 2000-2015, which is edmivelent storage capacity of wheat, which estimated the average national consumption of wheat during about 13.579 million tons, it is noticed the food security coefficient is low than.

Due to the expansion of strawberry nursery cultivation, transplant production has become an important industry in Egypt. Nitrogen and phosphorus are the most important nutrients affecting the number and quality of strawberry transplants. However, no empirical research exists addressing the optimal requirements of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilization rates for strawberry nurseries in Egypt, until now. This study was conducted at a private farm in Abo Ghalib, Giza Governorate, Egypt during the two successive summer seasons of 2015 and 2016 to determine the optimal requirements of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizations for Festival strawberry cultivar nurseries via evaluating the influence of four nitrogen rates (83, 100, 117 or 134 kg N/feddan) and five phosphorus rates (38, 62, 74, 86 or 98 kg P2O5/feddan) in a factorial experiment. Results revealed that increasing the rates of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizations increased the number of main runners/mother plant and number of marketable transplants/m2, and enhanced all vegetative growth parameters, leaf SPAD readings, leaf relative water content, crown diameter, crown carbohydrates, and leaf mineral content in both growing seasons. On the contrary, both elements had an inverse effect on leaf total soluble phenols. Thus, the study recommends to the nurserymen of Festival straw-berry cultivar to apply 117 or 134 kg N with 98 kg P2O5 per feddan under pure sandy soil condition which gave the highest number of transplants with high quality and subsequent high quality crop in the field.

This study was carried out in two successive seasons (2014-2015 and 2015-2016) at SEKEM company Farm (Bilbase, Sharkya Governorate) on chia (Salvia hispanica) plant which is  a new crop introduced lately to Egyptian cultivation as  a medicinal plant. The effect of three irrigation levels of different reference evapotranspiration (80, 100 and 120 % ETo) with foliar application of three levels of proline (100, 200 and 300 ppm), salicylic acid (200, 400 and 600 ppm) and putrescine (10, 15 and 20 ppm) in addition to the control treatment (tap water) was investigated on growth and yield of Salvia hispanica cultivated in sandy loam soil with drip irrigation system. The results of the two years experiments indicated that the highest values of plant growth parameters and seeds yield of S. hispanica were obtained from 100 % ETo. While 120 % ETo resulted in the maximum value of roots fresh and dry weights. Foliar-spray application of proline (100 ppm.), salicylic acid (200 ppm) and putrescine (10 ppm) resulted in optimum fresh and dry weights of herbage and roots. Seed yield was higher in plants sprayed with proline (100 ppm) and putrescine (10 ppm), although the differences between them and salicylic acid (200 and 400 ppm) or putrescine (15 ppm) were insignificant in both seasons. This leads us to recommend irrigation of S. hispanica accordingly with 100 % ETo coupled with foliar-spray application of salicylic acid (200 ppm) from the economic point of view.