Four different date palm male types were chosen to evaluate which male could be recommended to use as a pollinator for Barhi date palm cv. grown in Egypt. Three male types namely Ghanamy, Fard and Boyr were grown in the Fruit Trees Experimental Station at Dibba, Fojaira, UAE, and the fourth male was an individual Sewy satellite seedling grown in Egypt. Number of spathe/palm; spathe weight, length, & width ; pollen grains weight / spathe ; average of strand length as well as pollen grains germination % were determined for each male date palm tree from each male type . Moreover, pollen grains from each male type were used as a pollinator to evaluate their effect on fruit set and fruit quality of Barhi date palm cv. This study was carried out during both 2004&2005 seasons. Data showed that both Ghanamy and Fard male type were superior in their morphological characters as compared with Boyr or Sewy satellite seedling male type. Boyr male type showed the lowest values of morphological characters. On the other hand, there were no great differences in pollen grains germination percentage. Moreover, the results clearly indicated that Ghanamy pollen recorded the highest significant fruit set percentage and bunch weight (Kg) in both seasons of study. While, Fard pollen produced the highest fruit weight (g), length, diameter, flesh weight& thickness and flesh %. Boyr and Sewy pollen showed the highest ratio of fruit length / diameter in both seasons. Data also revealed that dates that were picked from bunches pollinated with Fard pollen had the highest total soluble salts (T.S.S) value and the lowest tannins content.

A total of 174 actinomycete cultures were isolated from a constructed biological water treatment system (BIOWATSYST)established at Abu Attwa station in Ismailia city, Egypt and funded by the European Commission Grant No.IC18-CT97-0163. The isolates were identified to belong to eight genera; Nocardia, Streptomyces, Intrasporangium, Micromonospora, Nocardioides, Actinomadura, Nocardiopsis, and Thermomonospora.  They were screened for their antibacterial, antifungal and cytotoxic activities against certain human and plant pathogens. Antimicrobial activities were determined by measuring bacterial and fungal growth inhibitions while cytotoxic activity was studied by using the Artemia salina bioassay. Thirty two percent of isolated cultures displayed antibacterial activity, 15% displayed antifungal activity and 9% displayed cytotoxic activity. Members of genus Streptomyces has recorded as the most frequent active isolates against tested bacteria (42%) and fungi (49%). However, the most cytotoxic activity was found with members of genus Nocardia (46%).  Results evaluated the fact that actinomycetes isolated from such systems could be considered as promising source for antimicrobial and cytotoxic bioactive agents.

Black cumin is one of the important medicinal plant and well known to flok remedy. Balady, Sori and Turki cultivars belong to black cumin are variated in chemical composition and antiviral activity. The results reflected significant heritability between the three cultivars in length and number of capsule per plant and number of branches per plant, while non-significant values of plant height, number of locules capsule, and seed yield per plant. Eight fatty acids methyl esters were detected in seeds of three cultivars by GLC. It was found change quantitatively of fatty acid between three cultivars. SDS-PAGA showed change qualitatively of poly peptides content accompanying three cultivars. A similarity of about 90% was found between Balady and Sori cultivars in relation to heritability. Water seed extracts, in vitro reduced ToMV infectivity to 6.73; 6.78 and 5.08% of Balady, Sori and Turki respectively. Four hours post and pre ToMV inoculation were most sensitive period to ToMV replication for three cultivars. On the other hand, the antiviral event changed in conformation and chemical structure of virion, coat protein and nucleic acid of ToMV with black cumin seed extract by spectroscopy. Balady, Sori and Turki; black cumin  cultivars were varieted based on heritiability, chemical composition according to fatty acid GLC and polypeptide fraction SDS-PAGE analysis as well as antiviral activities against tomato mosaic tobamovirus.

Surgical site infection (SSI) remains an important cause of morbidity and mortality among hospitalized patients. A total of 254 bacterial isolates were collected from 303 surgical specimens which were isolated from 92 males (53.2%) and 81 females (46.8%), their mean ages were 39.6±16.05 years (ranged from 1 month to 74 years). These isolates were identified as Staphylococcus aureus,Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Proteus vulgaris, Pseudomonasaeruginosa and commensal Gram+ve and Gram-ve bacteria. The most effective antibiotics were imipenem while ampicillin and penicillin G (First and second generation of b-Lactam) showed much lower activity against all types of bacterial strains. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of  imipenem determined by E-test were 0.047- 0.064 , 0.125, 0.19, 0.25 and 0.75mg/ml against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia  coli, Proteus vulgaris, Klebsiellapneumoniae  and Pseudomonas aeruginosa  respectively.

The nine most frequent bacterial strains out of 127 were isolated form ten drinking water samples collected from tap water and bottled water in sharqia governorate. The nine isolates were purified and examined for their resistance to increasing concentrations of two heavy metal ions, lead (Pb+2) and iron (Fe+3). Four stains out of the nine isolates encoded I, II, IV, and VIII showed the highest efficiency of both Pb+2 and Fe +3 uptake from nutrient broth media containing 100 ppm of the heavy metal ions. The four bacteria were preliminary identified and then confirmed by the Biolog examination as Corynebacterium jeikeium, Pseudomonas putida biotype A, Acinetobacter calcoaceticus and Acidovorax delafieldii. The increased concentrations of Pb+2 ions (from 100 to 500 ppm) in nutrient broth media had deleterious effect on the process of heavy metal uptake (biosorption) by all the four selected isolates. Whereas percentage of Pb+2 uptake decreased from 42.9 to 24%; from 72.6 to 42%, from 78.9 to 37% and from 68.8 to 45%, for the four selected isolates, respectively. Meanwhile there was slight decrease change in Fe+3 uptakes percentage accompanying the increase in heavy metal ion concentration. Optimization of the cultural conditions releaved maximum uptake op pb+2 and Fe+3 by the four tested strains in presence of 100 ppm heavy metal concentration when incubated at 25oC except for Acinetobacter calcoaceticus at 35oC in case of Pb+2 uptake, when pH, was adjusted at 5 under static conditions. Upon addition of 50 ppm Cu+2 ions to broth media supplemented with 100 ppm Pb+2 ions, the percentage of metal biosorption by the four tested isolated decreased between 41.11% and 48.45% according to type of strain. Similarly presence of Cu+2 ions caused decrease in Fe+2 uptake by the four isolates ranging between 29.14-45.1%. Percentage of Pb+2 ions uptake by the tested bacteria sharply decreased when a sterile tap water sample was used as natural medium for cell-metal contact. The percentage of uptake inhibition of Pb+2 ranged between 57-65.23% and between 75.1-84.27% for Fe+3 ions. Cell hydrolysate of three tested bacteria appeared to be free from plasmid DNA proving that the genetic character of heavy metal resistance is plasmidless and related to chromosmal DNA in case of Cory. jeikeium, P. putida and A. delafieldii. On the other hand, Acinet. Calcoaceticus contained plasmid of size 23.130 kb. Examining Acientobacter calcoaceticus using transmission electron microscope revealed the accumulation of Pb+2 ions on bacterial cell surface and the intracellular absorption of Fe+3 ions.

This investigation was carried out in the plastic house of Horticulture Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center, Giza during two consequent seasons (2002 – 2003) and (2003 – 2004). The study was aimed to enhance growth of Casimiroa rootstock seedlings to reach grafting size in a short time, beside defineding the suitable method of grafting. In this concern, results revealed that seed soaked in MgSO4 at 5 % for 15 min. and planted in media consists of peat and sand at 1 : 1, was increased seed germination percentage (92.1 and 94.8 %) and minimized the germination period (19.1 and 19.3 days), as compared with the other treatments. Thus it reached to the grafting size at a period of (179 and 180 days) in both seasons, respectively. However, Dormex (hydrogen cyanamide) treatment at 2% gave the highest root length (24.6 and 24.8 cm), and number of roots per plant (19.4 and 19.0). Results also showed that shield budding by using soft wood grafts, gave the highest percentage of success (69.2 and 72.4%), shortest  period of bud / scion (23.0 and 24.0 days), highest values of scion length (26.5 and 25.7 cm) and highest leaf area (38.28 and 40.67 cm2). However, cleft grafting with softwood grafts increased average number of leaves per sprouted graft (6.0 and 6.6) and shoot scion diameter (0.6 and 0.5 cm). Generally, seeds treated with MgSO4 at 5% berfore sowing in media consists of peat and sand at 1 : 1 in volume, induced healthy and sizeable rootstocks in a short time. Moreover, grafting rootstocks by soft wood grafts was the best method.

A pot experiment was carried out to investigate the agricultural value of a local phosphate rock (PR) as a source of plant phosphorus compared with that of the cur-rently imported triplesuperphosphate (TSP) .The PR was applied at the rate of 0, 55, and 110 kg P2O5 /ha and the TSP was at the rate of 0 , 45 and 90 kg P2O5 /ha. The growth and leaf contents of N, P and K of groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) grown on a clay soil were measured. The experiment continued for two seasons. Phosphatic fertilizers are of low recovery; therefore, they can remain for the next crop. Thus, the pots of the first season were set to study the residual effect of phosphorus in the second season. The results indicated that PR and TSP significantly (P>0.05) in-creased dry weights of shoot and root, leaf contents of N , P and available soil phos-phorus. However, plant height was significantly increased by TSP only. The leaf content of K was neither affected by PR nor TSP application. The results showed a positive effect of the residual PR and TSP on the measured parameters. Moreover, the results revealed that the plant measurements obtained from PR treatments were comparable to those obtained from TSP treatments which indicate that PR can be used as a potential source of phosphorus fertilizer.

The pesticide residues in drinking water, irrigation water, sediment and soil sam-ples collected from three villages, i.e. Samadon, Ashmon and El-Ramla, located at Menofia Governorate, Egypt were monitored during the period of Septemper 2002 to February 2003. The obtained results showed that the detected pesticide residues were varied in their types and structures in the investigated villages during period of study. It is clear that residues of organochlorine insecticide and the herbicide, atra-zine, were the most frequently detected in both of drinking and irrigation water sam-ples. According to the detected amounts and numbers of pesticide residues in all the collected samples, the soil samples contained higher pesticide residues (average of 0.07 ppm)  sediment (average of 0.05 ppm)  irrigation water (average of 0.04 ppm)  drinking water (0.01-0.02 ppm). Comparing between the selected sites, Sa-madon was the highest site contained pesticide residues more than Ashmon and El-Ramla.

Nodal stem segments of in vitro growing somatic embyogenesis and seedling-derived plantlets of sweet orange, C. sinensis (L.) of (Washington navel, shamouti and blood orange cvs.); grapefruit, C. paradisi (L.); Local mandarin, C. deliciosa (Tenor); lemon, C. limon; (L.); citron, C. medica (L.); lime, C. aurantifolia (Christm); rough lemon, C. jambhiri (Lush) and sour orange, C. aurantium (L.) were cultured on MS medium supplemented with different concentrations of BA (0.5,1.0 and 2.0 mg/L) alone or in combination with NAA (0.5 mg/L) for shoot multiplica-tion. The results indicated that somatic embryogenesis-derived plantlets can be suc-cessfully propagated in vitro with a good vigor compared with germinated seedlings. A large number of proliferated shoots were produced when these explants were cul-tured on MS medium containing 0.5mg/L of BA combined with 0.5mg/L of NAA. Most obtained shoots were rooted on half-strength MS medium containing 0.5 mg/L of NAA. These in vitro grown plantlets were then successfully transferred to green house through acclimatization process.

A laboratory investigation was conducted to study the effect of constant tempera-ture on some biological aspects of english grain aphid, Sitobion avenae (Fabricius). The present work was carried out in electrical incubators provided with photoperiod of 16 : 8 (L : D) and 55 – 60% R.H. Data revealed that the english grain aphid passed through four instars to reach maturity. The duration period of the nymphal stage was 19.0, 13.98, 11.96, 8.51 and 7.5 days at 12, 15, 18, 21, 24 °C, respectively. Developmental threshold of this stage is found to be 4.2 °C. The thermal units re-quired for complete one generation was 148 day – degrees. Life table parameters were as following : The reproduction rate (Ro) were 18.75, 30.72, 36.53, 44.21 and 32.42; mean generation time (GT) were 26.16, 21.23, 17.39, 11.92 and 9.86 days; population doubling time (DT) of the english aphid were 6.19, 4.29, 3.35, 2.18 and 1.96; intrinsic rate of increase (rm) were 0.1121, 0.1613, 0.2069, 0.3178 and 0.3528 and finite rate of increase (λ) were 1.119, 1.175, 1.229, 1.374 and 1.423 at 12, 15, 18, 21 and 24 °C, respectively. The results indicated clearly that the favourable range temperature for development and multiplication the english grain aphid be-tween 18 and 24°C.