Purpose

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is continuously in search of environment-friendly farming practices since mass-scale agriculture was initiated. It is imperative to gauge to the level of awareness of the farmers on the agricultural practices causing environmental issue in order to devise new agricultural extension programs. This research aims to identify the attitudes of farmers towards agriculture and environment in Al-Ghat area of Saudi Arabia.

Methodology

A simple random sample of 110 farms truly representing the farming community was drawn to meet the objectives of the study. Data were collected by using the pre-tested questionnaire during the face-to-face interviews. In order to understand the message of study, data were analyzed for percentages, arithmetic average and standard deviation in addition to the simple Pearson correlation coefficient.

Results

The results showed that the high proportion (87.3%) of farmers was interested in continuing to work farm and 77.3% of farmers did not consider adopting agriculture their main occupation. The findings of the survey reveal that some 55.5% of the respondent farmers were aware of the agricultural practices and their relation to the environment. Some 57.3% of the surveyed farmers are aware of potential benefits of enhanced utilization of agricultural organic wastes. However, main profession, farm employment (as the independent variables) showed a significant positive correlation with the attitudes of farmers towards their working in agriculture (as a dependent variable). Also a significant negative relationship between the educational levels and the attitudes of the farmers towards working in agriculture was noticed. The study also indicated a significant correlation between education and the degree of awareness of agricultural practices related to the environment and maximizing the optimum utilization of agricultural waste i.e. organic residues.

Conclusions

The study suggested the need for new awareness and orientation programs to educate farmers and extension workers, highlighting the environment- friendly agricultural practices.

Recommendation: There is need to offer incentives and facilities to keep the farmers stay in the farming business. Extension staff must keep educating them on beneficial features of organic farm waste and crop residues as organic fertilizers.

Fifty

HEstimation of Heterosis and Combining Ability Effects on Grain Yield and Some Agronomic Traits of Sorghum under Three NPK Fertilizers Levels
M.A. Sayed# and M.T. Said
Agronomy Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.
ETEROSIS and combining ability for grain yield and some …….agronomic traits were studied among thirty F1 grain sorghum crosses and their elven parents under three NPK levels during 2014 and 2015 seasons. Significant differences among genotypes were found for all studied traits, indicating wide genetic diversity. The interaction of genotypes with each of years and NPK levels were significant in most studied traits. The analysis of variance for combining ability revealed that the mean square due to entries, parents, parents vs. crosses, crosses, lines, testers, lines × testers turned up significant for all studied characters and suggesting that the experimental materials possessed considerable variability that both general and specific combining ability were involved in the genetic expression of these characters. The female line ICSB610 showed significant and negative general combining ability (GCA) effects for days to 50% heading and panicle length and positive for grain yield and plant height. It may be used to develop high yielding, early flowering, and tall hybrids with short panicles. For specific combining ability (SCA), effects, the crosses ICSA613 × ICSR89028 and ICSA20 × ICSR53 gave positive and highly significant SCA effects which indicated that these crosses can be considered desirable combiners. These crosses had also high grain yield per se and one of the parents with highest GCA effects. The observations on portioning of combining ability variance into additive and dominance variances indicated the role of both additive and dominance gene action. The magnitude of non-additive variance was higher than the additive variance by many folds for all studied traits.

Soil salinity is one of the serious abiotic stresses adversely affects crop production. The objectives of this study were to screen fifteen long-staple cotton belong to Gossypium barbadense L. for salinity tolerance, salinity indices, genotypic correlations, and path-coefficient analysis. Under normal soil the genotypes differed significantly in most traits in both years. Under saline soil the differences among genotypes re significant in one year and in the combined analysis for SCY/P, LY/P, SI, NS/B, PH, and Pressley index. The cultivars “G 90 x Aus”, G95, G 90, G 80, and G 83 showed the highest performance in SCY/P, LY/P, Lint%, NB/P and NS/B either under normal or saline soil. The reduction% caused by salinity was observed for PH (55.92%), LY/P (52.21%), SCY/P (48 75%), NB/P (32.47%), LI (5.68%), Micronaire reading (11.22%), Pressley index (6.63%) and UHM length (0.89%). Giz90 x Aus followed by Giza 90 showed the best tolerance to salinity stress. The STI, MP, GMP, HM and DI detected both of tolerant and susceptible genotypes and could be considered the best tolerant indices. The direct and indirect effects of SCY/P components varied greatly under both environments. The direct effects of the SCY/P components under normal soil were 0.504, 0.401, 0.153 and 0.147 for NB/P, LY/P, SI, and NS/B, respectively. However, under saline soil the direct effects were 0.802, 0.178, 0.128 and 0.050 for LY/P, NB/P, NS/B and SI, respectively. Therefore, under both environments, selection should be paid mainly on NB/P and LY/P.

Fusarium is one of the most dangerous fungal diseases that cause great loss of the sesame yield worldwide. The
present work aimed to improve tolerance and/or resistance to Fusarium through two cycles of pedigree selection on
sesame population for eight selection criteria started in the F3-generation. Genotypic coefficient of variability in the
F3 varied from 4.34% for days to 50% flowering to 38.15% for seed yield (SY/P). Days to 50% flowering showed
negative correlations with all traits except height to first capsule (HFC). Height to first capsule was negatively
correlated with length of fruiting zone (LFZ), 1000-SW, oil% and infection%, and positively correlated with
capsules/plant (NC/P) and SY/P. Single trait selection was an efficient method to improve selection criterion, but it
caused adverse effects on some correlated traits. Selection for days to 50% flowering improved earliness, but it was
better in improving yield if the selection was restricted by SY/P. Selection for oil% restricted by yield was better in
improving yield than selection for oil% per se. Therefore, the inclusion of a trait as independent culling level
improved the efficiency of selection. The best genetic gain in SY/P in percentage from the mid-parent was obtained
from selection for days to 50% flowering restricted by SY/P (35.56**), LFZ restricted by HFC (19.53**), days to
50% flowering (19.32**), oil% restricted by SY/P (19.02**), SY/P (17.38**), 1000 SW (14.09**) and LFZ (14.032**).
Therefore, selection index incorporating favorable trait is recommended.

THE CURRENT research aimed to evaluate and select bread wheat stable cultivars withhigh productivity across diverse sowing dates. Fourteen wheat cultivars were grown in a randomized complete block design with three replicates at six sowing dates during two successive seasons of 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 representing twelve environments. The cultivars were evaluated for grain yield and its attributes. Highly significant differences were obtained among the wheat cultivars, sowing dates, and their respective interaction for all measured traits. The highest grain yield (2.992-ton fed-1) was recorded on 30th November, after this date, each day delay in sowing of wheat onward decreases grain yield at the rate of 21kg fed-1 day-1. Overall, the cultivar Gemiza 11 gave the highest grain yield with an average of 2.861 ton fed-1, recorded the highest 1000-GW with an average of 47.73 g, highest straw yield with an average of 8.303-ton Fed-1, and was the earliest cultivar with a mean heading date of 92.9 days. According to GGE biplot results, Gemiza 11, Gemiza 9, and Sakha 94 ranked in the first order as high-yielding cultivars and had greater stability level overall sowing dates under. Assiut conditions. The most adequate cultivars for sowing in the first half of November (1st -15th ) are Misr 2, Sids 12, Sakha 95, Gemiza 9, and Gemiza 11. Also, Sakha 94, Gemiza 9, and Gemiza 11 can be sown after 30th November because they produce a satisfied yield, have good stability, and can be considered as late sowing tolerant.

TWENTY-ONE cultivars of bread wheat were evaluated for drought-stress tolerance atseedling and maturity stages under non-drought and drought-stress conditions. Significant differences among genotypes were obtained under non-drought and drought-stress conditions for all seedling and maturity characteristics. Highly positive and significant correlations were found for root length with respect to fresh weight of 0.74 and dry weight seedling of 0.80. However, negative and highly significant correlations were found for both drought susceptible index based on seedling traits (DSIST) and maturity traits (DSIST) with all seedling traits except root: shoot ratio, whereas no correlations were obtained for either DSIST or DSIMT with all maturity traits except 1000 kernel weight. Positive and highly significant correlation found between DSIST and DSIMT (0.85). SSR markers analysis showed that three bands produced by Xgwm596-7A (507bp), Xgwm497-1A (556bp) and Xgwm174-5D (409bp), they were presented in all tolerant genotypes based on DSIST. The three bands (507, 556 and 409bp) were correlated to DSIST, with R2 values of 81.05%, whereas the three bands were correlated to DSIMT with R2 values of 61.96%. Strong association was observed for genotypic distance with phenotypic distance based on seedling characteristics, that amounted to 0.66, whereas the correlation was less strong between genotypic distance and phenotypic distance based on maturity traits by 0.30. The seedling traits at 15% PEG were more association than maturity traits under drought-stress with SSR markers, this gives preference to using seedling traits as an indicator of drought-stress tolerance in breeding programs.

Climate change and global warming have become the most significant challenges to the 15agricultural production worldwide, especially in arid and semiarid areas. The main purpose of plant 16breeding programs now is to produce a genetically wide range of genotypes that canwithstand the 17adverse effects of climate change. Moreover, farmers now have to reallocate their cultivars due to 18their ability to tolerate unfavorable conditions. During this study, two field experiments and climate 19analysis based on 150 years of data were done to reallocate some genotypes of bread wheat in re- 20spect to climate change based on their performance under drought stress conditions. Climatic data 21indicate that there is an increase in temperature overall Egyptian sites coupled with in addition to 22some changes in rain amount. Among the tested cultivars, cultivar Giza 160 was the perfect one, 23while, cultivar Masr 03 was the weakest one. Susceptibility indices are a good tool for discovering 24the superior genotypes under unfavorable conditions and interestingly, some cultivars with high 25performance were among the superior cultivars in more than one of the tested traits in this study. 26Finally, combining the climatic data and the experimental data, we can concluded that, cultivars 27Giza 160 and Sakha 94 are suitable for growning in zones with harsh environments, such as the 28eastern desert and southern Egypt. While, cultivars Gemmeza 11, Sahel 01, Sakha 98, Sids 12, and 29Sakha 93 are suitable for growning in zones with good growing conditions, such as Delta and 30northern Egypt.

Anther culture is the most effective tool for doubled haploid production of wheat. This investigation was conducted to estimate genetic parameters of anther culture response in wheat and identification of putative Quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with response traits. Two varieties of wheat, namely ICR-DH (P1) and Sle 1 × 15 (P2) and their F1 and F2 progenies were used in the present investigation to estimate genetic parameters of anther culture response. Two molecular marker systems, SRAP and SSR markers were used to detect the polymorphism between two anther donor parents. Single marker analysis (SMA) and Composite interval mapping (CIM) were used to localize the putative QTL associated with four anther culture response in wheat using 100 plants of F2 population derived from F1 cross ‘ICR-DH’ × ‘Sel 1 × 15’. Analyses of variance
indicated significant differences between four populations (P1, P2, F1 and F2) for callus induction (CAL), number of green plants per 100 anther (GR), number of albino plant per 100 anther (AR) and total regenerated plants per 100 anther (TR). The additive effects were more important than dominance effects in controlling these traits. The two molecular marker systems were sufficient in detecting polymorphism between two parents. Thirty two putative QTLs were detected on eight linkage groups. Our study indicated that the additive effects of genes and detection of new QTLs permit marker-assisted selection of genotypes with high green plantlet regeneration efficiency in anther culture, and therefore favor efficient use of anther culture in wheat breeding programs

Soil salinity is one of the constraints of crop production in Egypt. The aims of this study
were to identify genomic regions associated with grain weight and its related traits along with their
salinity tolerance indices and to identify the most salinity tolerant and high-yielding genotypes.
Therefore, we evaluated an advanced backcross mapping population of barley in newly reclaimed soil
under two salinity levels of groundwater aquifers in South of Sinai, Egypt. We detected significant
QTL associated with grain weight related attributes and the salinity tolerance index (STI) distributed
throughout the whole genome of barley, which can be used to enhance salinity tolerance. Moreover,
the markers bPb-3739 (4H, 96.3 cM), AF043094A (5H, 156 cM), bPb-8161 (7H, 2.22 cM), and bPb-5260
(7H, 115.6 cM), were the most important identified genomic regions corresponding to vernalization,
dwarfing and dehydrin genes, which are correlated with salinity tolerance. Additionally, the doubled
haploid lines SI001, SI043, SI044, SI028, SI242, SI035, and SI005 had the highest STI values based on
yield average. The present study demonstrated that wild and elite barley do harbor novel valuable
alleles, which can enrich the genetic basis of cultivated barley and improve quantitative agronomic
traits under salinity conditions.