IntroductionWheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the leading food crop in the world. It ranks first among the main four crops namely: rice, maize and barley. It occupies about 30% of the world cropping area (FAO, 2016). In Egypt, wheat is considered one of the more strategic grain crops. The cultivated area of wheat reached about 3.1 million faddan in 2015-2016 giving 8.2 million tons of grain, with a national average of about 18.1 ardab/fad. However, the local consumption in the same year surpassed 14-15 million tons. Every year, Egypt imports about 55% of its wheat consumption to face the great needs of the high population increment , hectoliter, density, root length, and protein percentage in both seasons. Gemmeiza 11 superior the other cultivars for both of grain and straw yield and for EC in 2015/16 and for shoot length in both seasons. Giza 168 recorded the highest values for density in both seasons. Increases in nitrogen fertilizer increased significantly number of days to heading and maturity, plant height, spikes/m 2 , grain/spike, grain and straw yield, while decreased 1000 grain weight. There were significant differences among N levels treatments regarding EC, hectoliter weight, density, root length, shoot length, dry weight and protein percentage in both seasons. Application of 100 kg N/fad resulted in higher values than other treatments for all traits except EC in both seasons were decreased.

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An experiment was conducted at the Experimental Farm of Sakha Agricultural Research Station 31° 07\\ N and 30° 57\\, Kafr El-Sheikh, Egypt, during 2015 and 2016 seasons to study the effect of skipping one irrigation at different growth stages and foliar application of zinc on quantitative and qualitative characteristics of sunflower cultivar Sakha 53.A split plot design with four replications was used. The main plots were devoted to water treatments i.e. I 1 = without skipping (control four irrigation during season), I 2 = skipping one irrigation during vegetative stage, I 3 =skipping one irrigation during flowering stage, I 4 = skipping one irrigation during grain filling stage. Sub plot treatments were devoted to foliar application with zinc sulfate , i.e. Zn o = water application, Zn 1 = 0.5% and Zn 2 = 1% concentration. The results showed that flowering stage was the most sensitive to water deficit stress and skipping irrigation at this stage caused marked decrease in chlorophyll content in leaves, relative water content (RWC %), seed oil %, seed yield and its components, while increased proline content and seed protein % in the two growing seasons. Zinc spraying had significant effect on all attributes in this research. In general, application of Zn could be used as a good tool to increase yield of sunflower under drought stress.Also, the highest mean values for seasonal amount of water applied and water productivity were recorded under traditional irrigation. From this study we can be concluded that it is possible to gain high seed yield with less quantities of applied water when the irrigation skipping happens at vegetative stage with application of 1% zinc sulfate .

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