In the present investigation, we study the effect of Bacillus thuringiensis MH161336 (10^6–8 CFU/cm³), silicon (25 mL L⁻¹), and carrot extract (75 mL L⁻¹) as seed primers, individually or in combination, on morphological, physio-biochemical and yield components of drought-stressed pea plants (Master B) during 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 seasons. Our results indicated that drought causes a remarkable reduction in plant height, leaf area, number of leaves per plant, and number of flowers per plant in stressed pea plants during two seasons. Likewise, number of pods, pod length, seeds weight of 10 dried plants, and dry weight of 100 seeds were decreased significantly in drought-stressed pea plants. Nevertheless, seed priming with the individual treatments or in combination boosted the morphological, physio-biochemical, and yield characters of pea plants. The best results were obtained with the Bacillus thuringiensis + carrot extract treatment, which led to a remarkable increase in the number of leaves per plant, leaf area, plant height, and number of flowers per plant in stressed pea plants in both seasons. Moreover, pod length, number of seeds per pod, seeds weight of 10 dried plants, and dry weight of 100 seeds were significantly increased as well. Bacillus thuringiensis + carrot extract treatment led to improved biochemical and physiological characters, such as relative water content, chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, regulated the up-regulation of antioxidant enzymes, increased seed yield, and decreased lipid peroxidation and reactive oxygen species, mainly superoxide and hydrogen peroxide, in drought-stressed pea plants.

A field experiment was carried out at the Department of Agronomy Experimental Farm, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University, during the growing seasons 2017/18 and 2018/19 to study the impact of foliar spray by some Nano Micro-nutrients on grain yield and quality of three cultivars of bread wheat. Randomized complete block design (RCBD) was used in this experiment in three replications using strip plot arrangement. The bread wheat varieties i.e., Sids-1, Sids-12, and Gemmeaza-11 were arranged vertically, while foliar sprays with tap water (solvent as a control) and Iron, Manganese, Zinc, Iron + Manganese, Iron + Zinc, Manganese+ Zinc and Iron + Manganese + Zinc in Nano form at 200 ppm concentration were distributed horizontally. In both seasons, the foliar spray treatment with certain micronutrient nano-particles had a significant impact on grain yield, flour percentage, coarse bran percentage, wet gluten percentage, and dry gluten percentage. As a result, wheat plants sprayed with Fe + Mn + Zn had the greatest average values of the previous traits. Furthermore, the cultivars studied had a substantial impact on the majority of the traits studied. In addition, in both seasons, the Sids-1 cultivar produced the greatest mean values of the most investigated traits. In both the 1st and 2nd seasons, the interaction between some micro-nutrients, nano-particles, and cultivars had a significant (P ≤ 0.05) and highly significant (P ≤ 0.01) impact on fermentation time. In this approach, the Sids-12 cultivar, which was sprayed with Mn+Zn in the 1st season, and the same cultivar when sprayed with Mn or Fe+Zn in the 2nd season, yielded the most elevated mean values of fermentation time (37.00 and 36.50 minutes within the two seasons).

Precision agriculture relies heavily on information concerning assessing and mapping the spatial variation of soil attributes to ensure soil and plant sustainability. The current study was undertaken in the Gharb El-Mawhoub area of Dakhla Oasis to determine, predict, map, and assess the spatial variation of physicochemical attributes. Thirty-four geo-referenced soil profiles yielded a sum of 131 representative samples. Soil physicochemical properties, i.e., electrical conductivity (ECe), texture, sand, silt, clay, calcium carbonate, organic matter saturation percentage (SP), pH, cation exchange capacity (CEC), organic matter (OM), exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP), gypsum, and sodium absorption ratio (SAR) were measured. Following data normalization, classical and geostatistical approaches have been performed to characterize soil parameters and their spatial distribution. Semi-variogram models were used to quantify the spatial variation of physicochemical properties, and the ordinary kriging technique was applied to generate the respective maps. Accuracy of the prediction performance of models was assessed employing the cross-validation technique. Results showed that soil characteristics differed considerably throughout the area under study, with significant positive or negative correlation coefficients (P < 0.01 and/or P < 0.05). Furthermore, Rational Quadratic, Circular, Hole Effect, Pentaspherical, Exponential, Tetrasperical, and J-Bessel semi-variogram models were chosen as the best-fitted models for the investigated soil properties. Cross-validation results indicated that the selected models are the best-suitable semi-variogram models for estimation and mapping the spatial pattern surfaces of the soil attributes studied. The generated prediction maps provide valuable information concerning precision agriculture for improved soil productivity and limitation reduction. Therefore, these predicted maps have a high potential for application in site-specific management. Overall, the findings demonstrated that geostatistics approaches are powerful techniques for determining, predicting, and mapping the spatial interrelationships of soil attributes.

Oleogel samples were prepared from sunflower oil with β-Sitosterol (Sit) and Stearic acid (SA) mixture. Water was added to prepare an oleogel-based emulsion. The oleogel-based emulsion showed a white and smooth appearance without separation after storage at 5^οC for 24 h. The firmness of emulsion reduced as the water content increased, while it was increased as the oleogelator concentration increased. Additionally, diffraction patterns and thermal properties of emulsion varied depending on water content. Furthermore, all the oleogel-based emulsion samples showed a positive slope of storage modulus (G′) and loss modulus (G″) with the increase in frequency. On the other hand, the stability of β-carotene (BC) -loaded emulsion to different conditions was evaluated. A greater BC content was found for samples stored in the dark and under natural light than that of samples stored under UV light. Oleogel and oleogel-based emulsion showed a good BC release rate in simulated gastrointestinal fluids. The obtained results indicate that functional BC-fortified emulsion can be successfully prepared using β-Sitosterol and Stearic acid mixture with sunflower oil and water.

Recent technological advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have dramatically reduced the cost of DNA sequencing, allowing species with large and complex genomes to be sequenced. Although bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the world’s most important food crops, efficient exploitation of molecular marker-assisted breeding approaches has lagged behind that achieved in other crop species, due to its large polyploid genome. However, an international public–private effort spanning 9 years reported over 65% draft genome of bread wheat in 2014, and finally, after more than a decade culminated in the release of a gold-standard, fully annotated reference wheat-genome assembly in 2018. Shortly thereafter, in 2020, the genome of assemblies of additional 15 global wheat accessions was released. As a result, wheat has now entered into the pan-genomic era, where basic resources can be efficiently exploited. Wheat genotyping with a few hundred markers has been replaced by genotyping arrays, capable of characterizing hundreds of wheat lines, using thousands of markers, providing fast, relatively inexpensive, and reliable data for exploitation in wheat breeding. These advances have opened up new opportunities for marker-assisted selection (MAS) and genomic selection (GS) in wheat. Herein, we review the advances and perspectives in wheat genetics and genomics, with a focus on key traits, including grain yield, yield-related traits, end-use quality, and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. We also focus on reported candidate genes cloned and linked to traits of interest. Furthermore, we report on the improvement in the aforementioned quantitative traits, through the use of (i) clustered regularly interspaced short-palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9)- mediated gene-editing and (ii) positional cloning methods, and of genomic selection. Finally, we examine the utilization of genomics for the next-generation wheat breeding, providing a practical example of using in silico bioinformatics tools that are based on the wheat reference-genome sequence.

ABSTRACT

This study was carried out during 2010 and 2011 seasons to evaluate the influence of intercropping Ewaise mangoes, Balady mandarins and Solo papayas with Zaghloul date palms on the leaf area, nutrients in the pinnae, total counts of bacteria in the rhizosphere, yield and fruit quality of Zaghloul date palms. Palms (pure stand) had a higher leaf area, nutrients, bunch weight, yield/ palm compared to palms intercropped with mangoes, mandarins and papayas. Rhizosphere of intercropped palms had greater total counts of bacteria rather than pure stand of palms. Growing Ewaise mangoes, Balady mandarins and Solo papayas with Zaghloul date palms had no negative effects on both physical and chemical characteristics of date fruits comparing with pure stand of palm. Yield of Zaghloul date palms was slightly declined with intercropping rather than cultivation of date palm alone. Intercropping date palms with Solo papayas gave the best results with regard to yield quantitively and qualitatively comparing with the other intercrops. Intercropping Ewaise mangoes gave the highest net profit followed by Balady mandarins. Growing Ewaise mangoes or Balady mandarins with Zaghloul date palms could be recommended for obtaining the highest net return per unit area.