Puccinia porri (previously known as Puccinia allii) is one of the most important rust fungi that cause rust disease on garlic, onions, leek and chives. It usually appears as bright orange spots on infected plants. Typical symptoms of the rust disease on Egyptian leek were observed in Nubaria, El-Behera, Egypt, in March and April 2021. This is the first report on observing symptoms of rust disease caused by P. porri on Egyptian leek in Egypt. The aim of this research was to investigate antifungal properties of bergamot (Citrus bergamia L.) essential oil against Puccinia porri in vitro and under greenhouse experiments. The impact of various bergamot oil concentrations (100, 250, 500, 750 and 1000 µl/L) on the germination of urediniospores of the causing fungus was investigated in laboratory conditions. The results showed that bergamot oil reduced the percentage of urediniospores germination at all concentrations …

Assessment of certain plant extracts for controlling potato tuber soft rot disease caused by Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum

Postharvest diseases, such as black spots caused by Alternaria alternata, have caused huge economic losses to the tomato industry and seriously restricted its development. In recent years, biological control has become a new method to control postharvest diseases of fruits and vegetables. Our research group screened W. anomalus, a yeast demonstrating a promising control effect on a postharvest black spot disease of tomatoes, and explored its physiological mechanism of prevention and control. Therefore, this study investigated the prevention and control effect of metabolites of W. anomalus on tomato black spot disease and the inhibition effect of main components on A. alternata. A GC-MS analysis found that isoamyl acetate was the main component of W. anomalus that played an inhibitory role. The results showed that isoamyl acetate could inhibit the growth of A. alternata and had a certain control effect on postharvest black spots in tomatoes. Our findings suggest that isoamyl acetate could be a promising alternative to fungicides for controlling postharvest black spots in tomatoes.

The study was designed to monitor the cleavage rate (CR) and in-vitro cultivation rate (IVC) after addition of energy sources, non-essential amino acids, and antioxidants to the Synthetic oviductal fluid (SOF) and FertiCult. After in-vitro maturation and in-vitro fertilization, presumptive zygotes were cultured in one of two culture media: FertiCult media and SOF medium, supplemented with pyruvate, glucose, and sodium lactate as energy sources, as well as 10, 20, 250, 500, and 750 mg non-essential amino acids, and antioxidants. All stages of cleavage rate (CR), and in-vitro cultivation rate (IVC) of embryonic development including morula stage (MOR) and blastocyst (BLAS) have been assessed. The findings revealed that there were no significant differences in the CR between the control and other treated groups with sources of energy when added to SOF media (P > 0.05), while there were significant differences (P < 0.05) in the IVC of embryonic development between groups (The percentages of MOR stage in the control, pyruvate, glucose and mixture of source of energy (MIX) were at 50%, 62.5%, 60%, and 63.6%, respectively). The highest percentage of the BLAS was recorded after SOF supplementation with glucose (40%). Similarly, there were no significant differences (P > 0.05) in the CR between control and FertiCult supplemented with sources of energy, while the IVC stages increased significantly (P < 0.05) in the FertiCult media supplemented with glucose, pyruvate, sodium lactate, and MIX. The percentages of the MOR stage in the control, pyruvate, glucose and mix media were at 50%, 55.6%, 55.6%, 54.5%, 57.1% respectively. The lowest percentage of the BLAS was recorded after FertiCult supplementation with pyruvate (11.1%). Replenishing the SOF maturation media with 20 mg of non-essential amino acids significantly (P < 0.05) enhanced the MOR stage (100%). There was also an improvement in the development of BLAS stage, where it reached 31.2% and 47.4% in the SOF maturation media supplemented with 10, and 750 mg non-essential amino acids, respectively. There were no significant differences (P > 0.05) in neither CR nor IVC between control and FertiCult supplemented with antioxidants. There were significant differences (P < 0.05) in the MOR stages (control, 42.9% & treated, 57.9%) and BLAS stages (control, 21.4% & treated, 42.1%) in antioxidant supplemented SOF maturation media compared to control. In conclusion, supplementation of SOF cultivation medium with energy sources, 20 mg of non-essential amino acids and antioxidant addition may improve the cleavage rate (CR) and in vitro cultivation rate (IVC) of buffalos’ embryonic development.

Currently every country is suffering from climate change and despite the ongoing efforts, there are still limited success stories for the improvement of plant abiotic stress resilience. The studies mainly focused on understanding the stress response and tolerance at the molecular level and utilizing it to another genotype with no tolerance. The strong interaction of plants with their environment is the main obstacle here, which prevents the outcomes of small-scale experiments to be repeated in the field. The inclusion of wild genotypes adapted to extreme environments in QTL studies and breeding efforts may stand as a promising approach for the improvement of abiotic stress tolerance. Agricultural practices including biostimulants, micronutrients and nanoparticles, genome editing, and engineering organelles can also lead to reduced yield loss. Understanding how stress memory is initiated and how to make it heritable even under favorable growth conditions is another approach that needs more investigation. The aim of this book chapter is to point out the fact that single efforts by themselves will not be enough for sustainability, and although there is still a gap between breeders, farmers, biodiversity scientists, agricultural engineers, molecular scientists, plant pathologists, and climate scientists, they should combine their knowledge to secure future generations.

Heat stress has always been a major determinant of mandarin production in Upper Egypt. To reduce the negative effects of such climatic changes on the mandarin trees in Assiut, proline was used to make the trees able to withstand these changes. Herein, the experiments were executed throughout two successive seasons (2019/2020 and 2020/2021) at the experimental orchard of Assiut University, Faculty of Agriculture, Egypt, on twelve uniform Balady mandarin trees in a complete randomized-block design (3 treatments x 4 replications). The main objective of this study was to enhance the fruit quality of the Balady mandarin cultivar by using different concentrations of L-proline (100 and 200 µg/ml) under Assiut conditions. Balady mandarin trees were exposed to L-proline five times through the fruit-growing period (every 30 days from June 1st week to October 1st week). The results demonstrated that five applications of 200 µg/ml L-proline foliar treatment might significantly boost Balady mandarin quality. Consequently, using this eco-friendly fertilizer under the climatic conditions of Assiut is recommended.