To evaluate the performance of micro-catchment water harvesting techniques in combating desertification and the land degradation  in the arid and semi- arid  areas in Syria, this study was conducted at Debah Site of Hama Steppe / Syria, about 100 km north east of Hama city, about 70 km of Salamieh city and about 60 km north east of Hamra area. Community-based approach was introduced as an alternative to better manage the available and degraded resources. The micro-catchment water harvesting techniques were tested at the site (manually prepared semi-circular, contour ridges). Tow spacing (6 and 12m), and three fodder species: (Atriplex halimus, Atriplex leucoclada and Salsolavermiculata) were compared. Statistical analysis of the 2011-2012 showed high efficiency of micro-catchment water harvesting techniques in improving land productivity through increasing soil moisture content and shrub growth and shrub survival rates as compared to the control without water harvesting. Atriplex halimus recorded the highest survival rates and biomass as compared to other species.

This study aims to evaluate the effect of solar UV radiation on defensive enzymes activities in lettuce seedlings. Seeds of lettuce were grown in high tunnels for 35 days, exposed to three different levels of solar UV, created by using three different types of plastic films. Each plastic film transmits different levels of solar UV (0% in UV-B, 4% in UV-L and 83% in UV-T). The obtained results indicated that solar UV radiation has led to significant decrease in seedling fresh weight. UV-B treatment resulted the highest shoot and root length while UV-T treatments exhibited the highest shoot: root ratio. Solar UV radiations have no effect on peroxidase activity in shoots. While ascorbate peroxidase was activated and catalase was inhibited in shoot by UV-T treatments. In lettuce roots, peroxidase, ascorbate peroxidase, and catalase activities were increased by increasing the level of solar UV radiation. In case of UV-T, phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) activity in both shoots and roots of lettuce seedlings was higher than those of other treatments. In addition, Phenols are accumulated in lettuce shoots as a result of UV radiation in UV-L and UV-T treatments. Also, phenols in roots increased by increasing solar UV dose. The study concluded that solar UV radiation induced some antioxidant enzymes, increased the accumulation and biosynthesis of phenolic compounds and reduced lettuce seedlings growth.

The main objective of this paper was to analyze the impact of government policies on fruit and vegetable sector  in 2003 and 2009 in terms of profitability, protection, efficiency, competitiveness and comparative advantages. The study depended on secondary data and information collected from relevant sources and references. The policy analysis matrix (PAM) adopted as an analytical model to achieve the study objective. Private profitability, social profitability, nominal protection coefficient on outputs, nominal protection coefficient on inputs, effective protection coefficient, domestic resources coefficient private cost ratio and subsidy ratio to producer were calculated for the crops under study. The study results show that fruit and vegetable sector was taxed for outputs and subsidized for inputs, the net effect of outputs taxation and inputs subsidies resulted in a net taxation on value added at varying degrees. Consequently, it could be concluded that, although the overall impact was negative and tending to be worse, but the study results indicate that there are still comparative advantages in fruit and vegetable crops production. The study recommended further vertical and horizontal expansion of fruits and vegetables, strengthening production infrastructures, and government should enact efficient policies that correct the distorting tradable - outputs policy.

The effect of various thermal treatments (electric oven, microwave) and g-irradiation at three doses (6, 8 and 10 KGy) on the composition of volatile and non-volatile of anise essential oil and also their antioxidant properties were considered. The hydrodistilled oil (HD) of control and treated samples were subjected to gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC/MS) analysis. The volatile profile of raw HD oil of anise consisted mainly of transe-anethole (79.68%) followed by hexahydrofarnesyl acetone (6.95%), para-anisaldehyde (5.49%); g-himachalene (2.53%) and estragole (0.76%). Although the effect of roasting didn’t cause significant changes in the total yield  of major compounds of HD anise oil which are phenylpropanoid derivative (transe anethole , para-anisaldehyde, cis-anethole and estragole (=methylchavicol), it is found that gamma irradiation revealed the same behavior at the 10 KGy irradiated sample but decrease the total yield of these compounds in 6.8 KGy irradiated sample compared to control one. also the thermal and g- irradiation caused drastic increase in the total yield of sesquiterpenes whereas decreased oxygenated compounds  in all samples under investigation compared to control one. Such changes affected the antioxidant activity of the treated samples 1.1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging as well as β-carotene bleaching test against butylated hydroxy toluene (BHT). The strongest effect of reduction of DPPH radical as well as the highest inhibiting effect of the oxidation of linoleic acid and the subsequent bleaching of β-carotene was by 8 KGy irradiated sample which comprised (84.57%±1.43); (85.21% ± 0.12) respectively, in comparison to BHT (98% ± 0.0) at the same concentration 30 µg/mL besides all samples under investigation revealed high antioxidant activities due to their high content of phenylpropanoid and oxygenated compounds. These confirmed by total phenolic content.  High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was used for the analysis of phenolic compounds in the selected sample. Polyphenolic compounds were analysed on C18 Reversed Phase (RP) HPLC. A total of 9 phenolic compounds were identified, the obtained results showed that the predominant compound was P-qumaric acid (43.36%) followed by ferulic acid (21.06%).

Two field experiments were carried out during two early summer seasons of 2012 and 2013 years at the Experimental Farm of Kaha Station, Qalubia Governorate to study the response of snap bean plants Poulista c.v to some agricultural treatments for early green pods yield production using (flowering, amcotone, super phosphate solution compounds) as foliar nutrition, (charcoal, agriculture sulphur and charcoal + agriculture sulphur) as soil addition and( Pea, onion and broad bean) as protection plants, in addition using black polyethylene plastic as a soil mulch. The results indicated that spraying the plants with flowering and amcotone compounds followed by super phosphate solution had the highest values of fresh and dry plant weight. While addingcharcoal to the soil before sowing snap bean seeds gave the highest values of no. of leaves/ plant followed by spraying withflowering and amcotone compounds, respectively. The data showed also that spraying the plants with flowering, amcotone compounds, super phosphate solution, adding charcoal + sulphur and soil mulch with black polyethylene plastic exerted the highest values on all parameter of  green pods its and yield attributes in both growing seasons. Concerning total sugars in dry pods it's clear that using protection plants with broad bean followed byonion were the best treatments on it. Generally it can recommend  using  any one of the mentioned treatments in this experiment especially flowering, amcotone compounds, super phosphate solution, charcoal + sulphur, respectively to obtain high green pod yield  either early or total with the  best quality.

Seventeen genotypes (G) of bread wheat (14 promising lines and 3 commercial cultivars) were evaluated for mean performance and stability of grain yield/plant, grain protein content and dry gluten percentage under 16 environments (two locations (L), two sowing dates(D) and four fertilization treatments (F)). The resultsconfirmed the existence of considerable genetic variation among genotypes and their performance was significantly affected by different environments for the studied traits. Kalubia locations recorded the highest mean values for grain yield/plant while; Fayoum location recorded the highest mean values for the two quality traits. Yield and quality traits were significantly increased on early (recommended) sowing dates at Kalubia and Fayoum locations than on late sowing dates. Applying biofertilizer only gave the lowest mean performance in all traits, but adding mineral N besides biofertilizer markedly increased grain yield/plant and the two quality traits. However, insignificant differences existed between the rate of nitrogen recommended (80kg N/fed.) and the rate of (biofertilizer + 60kgN/fed.), indicating that biofertilizer could be efficient in reducing costs of the expensive mineral N and reducing environmental pollution. On an average highest values of grain yield/plant were recorded by the promising wheat lines no. 10 (24.57 g), no. 9 (22.50 g), and no. 11 (21.64 g) as compared to the best check cultivar Giza 168. Meantime, this cultivar surpassed the other genotypes in protein and dry gluten percentages. Concerning phenotypic stability, the three superior lines no. 10, 9 and 11 gave the highest mean values (x¯) of grain/plant coupled with significant regression coefficient (bi) values higher than unity and significant deviation from regression (S2di), thus they considered specifically adapted to favourable environments.

This study aimed to conduct content analysis of Shams agricultural magazine, through: 1) analyzing the content of the magazine’s topics in terms of number and area, 2) analyzing the content of magazine’s images in the covers and internal pages in terms of number and area, and 3) measuring magazine’s readability using Flesch’s equations for reading ease and human interest. In order to achieve these objectives, the study performed the content analysis on the magazine issues published in 2014 (12 issues). Frequencies and percentages were used for result presentation. Findings of the study could be summarized as: the most frequent sections was ads, while the least frequent sections were irrigation, soils and the issue file. Regarding the topics, results show that the most frequent topics were fruits, vegetables, ornamentals and field crops within all magazine’s sections except the agricultural mechanization section. Results also showed that citrus topics has ranked first among fruit crops, cabbage among vegetable crops, wheat & corn among field crops, and timber trees among ornamental plants. The results also reported that all of the magazine’s front covers depends on one single image except one issue which depends on a colored area, fruits images ranked first followed by field crops, medicinal and aromatic crops. Regarding the back cover, one half of the issues relied on one image and the other half depends on more than one image or colored area, and the majority of those pictures belongs to vegetables and fruit crops. The most frequent images within the inside pages were in the ads and horticulture sections, while the least frequent images were in the sections of irrigation and soils. With regard to measuring the magazine’s readability, results shows that the overall average sentence length was 40 word/phrase, which goes beyond the proper average for reading ease. With respect to the human interest, results showed that most of issues (January, April, June, August, October, November, and December) located within the medium suspense category according to the degree of human interest. Overall, the magazine’s human interest degree (14.18) made it a medium suspense magazine according to the Flesch’s human interest formula. At the end, the study concludes some recommendations for improving the contents and readability of Shams agricultural magazine.

Karish cheese was made by fermentation of skim milk with yoghurt starter culture (Y) or by direct acidification with concentrated juice from orange (O), grapefruit (G) or lemon (L). In a combination of fermentation and direct acidification, the different juices were used to give the treatments of YO, YG and YL. The highest yield (29.17%) of the fresh cheese was recorded from YL treatment. This was followed by values of 27.93, 27.51 and 26.13% from L, YO, and O treatments in order, whereas cheese from Y had the lowest yield being 21.26%. Such yield values were accompanied by the corresponding vitamin C contents of 6.5, 7.33, 6.35, 7.50 and 0.33 mg/100 g, respectively. The use of different juices gave more acidic fresh cheese than cheese made using Y with them or Y alone which caused the lowest acidity content.        The rheological properties of the fresh cheese including hardness, cohesiveness, springiness, gumminess and adhesiveness were also affected by the applied treatments. During storage of all cheese samples in the refrigerator, TS, acidity, total protein, SN/TN and FRI gradually increased with different rates, whereas only vitamin C content decreased. Evaluation of the organolptic properties revealed that the use of orange or lemon juice with yoghurt starter gave the best quality of fresh cheese with the higher scores for body and texture as well as the flavour of the cheese.

Agriculture Investments play important role in agriculture sector, It contributes about 15.4 of total GDP for the period (1995 / 1996 - 2013 / 2014).  The research problem was the decrease in the contribution of the agricultural investment in the total investment and this has lead to a decrease in the contribution of the agriculture sector in the Egyptian Gross demostic products (GDP).  The results showed that agricultural sector contributes with about 5.6% of the total investments between different economic sectors. The study showed that there was an efficiency in the agricultural private investment and in total agricultural investment while there was unefficiency in the agricultural public investment. The study showed that the most important determinants of agricultural investment in Egypt were agricultural gross domestic product, GDP, the agricultural income, reclaimed area, interest rate of agricultural loans and agricultural labor. The agricultural investment value is inversely proportional to both of the interest rates of agricultural loans and the volume of agricultural labor, where by decreasing both of the interest rates of agricultural loans and size of agricultural labor by about 1% leads to an increase in agricultural investments with about 0.17, 1.88 billion pounds respectively, the reason of decline in the agricultural employment size was to expand in using the technology in the agricultural sector. From the estimated model indicators that increasing both of the agricultural gross domestic product and GDP and agricultural income with about 1% leads to increase agricultural investments with about 0.413 , 40, 30 million pounds, respectively, and by increasing the reclaimed area with about 1% the investment increased with about 3.2 million pounds. The study showed that ARIMA model was the most suitable model for forecasting public, private and total agricultural investment. The forecasted figures for public investment were about 3.4, 3.01, 3.04 billion pounds for the years 2014/2015, 2015/2016, 2016/2017, respectively while forecasting for the private agricultural investment were about 6.14, 3.99, 2.65 billion pounds, respectively for the same years. While forecasting for total agricultural investment will be about 10.04, 7.64, and 5.79 billion pounds during the forecasted years. Finally the study recommended some important and topical recommendations for raising the agricultural investment such as: 1. Unify the agencies responsible for data source of investments to design a correct and clear investment map. 2. Stimulate agricultural investment projects by reducing the taxes through designing good tax and investment policies. 3. To Integrate the young graduates and small farmers in great cooperation for land reclamation and other agricultural projects by the help and stimulation of Agricultural Development And Credit Bank.

Sixteen flax genotypes {13 promising lines and 3 check varieties viz., Giza 8 (oil type), Sakha 1 (dual purpose type) and Sakha 3 (fiber type)} were evaluated for straw, seed, oil yields and their related traits under twelve different environments; four locations (Sakha, Etay El-Baroud, Ismailia and Giza Exp. Stations through three successive seasons (2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14). These materials were evaluated in a randomized complete blocks design with three replications at the twelve above-mentioned environments. The analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among genotypes (G), environments (E) and G x E interaction for all studied traits except straw weight per plant, indicating a wide range of variation among genotypes, environments and these genotypes exhibited differential response to environmental conditions. The significant variance due to residual for all characters except both straw weight per plant and oil yield per fad indicated that genotypes differed with respect to their stability suggesting that prediction would be difficult, which means that mean performance alone would not be appropriate. Interaction component of variance (σ2ge) was less than the genotypic variance (σ2g) for all characters, indicating that genotypes differ in their genetic potential for these traits. This was reflected in high heritability and low discrepancy between phenotypic (PCV) and genotypic (GCV) coefficients of variability values for these traits indicating the possibility of using each of long fiber percentage, plant height and technical stem length as selection indices for improving straw weight per plant, as well as, using 1000-seed weight and capsules number per plant as selection indices for improving seed weight per plant. Yield stability (YSi) statistic indicated that S.541-C/3 and S.541-D/10 gave high mean performance and stability for straw, fiber, seed and oil yields per fad in addition to oil percentage, capsules number per plant and 1000-seed weight. Therefore, the two genotypes well be released under the name Giza 11 and Giza 12, respectively. These newly released varieties are of dual purpose type for straw, fiber, seed and oil yield. They may replace the low yielding cultivars Giza 8, Sakha 1 and Sakha 3.