Four different highly economic value pepper cultivars Trezaa, Emberu, Mazurka and Taranto usually grown in Egypt were used to evaluate the efficacy of certain resistance inducers to enhance resistance of pepper fruits against gray mould fungus. Pathogenicity tests with Botrytis cinerea (BC-3 isolate) revealed that cv. Mazurka (Red Colour) was most tolerant and exhibited 40.15% rot severity, while cv. Emberu (Yellow Colour) was highly susceptible and showed 79.12% rot severity. The other two pepper cultivars, that is, cv. Trezaa and Taranto showed severity of 50.23 and 52.75%, respectively. Treatment of pepper fruits with resistance inducers salicylic acid (SA); abscisic acid, methyl jasmonate and calcium chloride significantly decreased gray mould development under laboratory conditions. Calcium chloride was the most effective on all pepper cvs. mentioned earlier and inhibited diameter of rotting area with overmean of 40.6%. This was followed by SA as 34.01%. Abscisic acid and methyl jasmonate, however, showed lower mean inhibition of 16.8 and 18.8%, respectively. Meantime, treatment of pepper fruits with such resistance inducers and calcium chloride increased activity of the defense related enzymes, that is, polyphenol oxidase (PPO), peroxidase (POD), phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) as well as the total phenols where SA and calcium chloride were the most effective. This could explain potentiality of such compounds to enhance pepper resistance to control B. cinerea of the gray mould of pepper.

Comparative study between pure and nanoemulsions (NEs) monoterpenes, cinnamaldehyde, citral, geraniol pulegone, and (R)carvone for their fungicidal activity against three of soil borne pathogenic fungi namely, Pythium digitatum, Rhizoctonia solani and Fusarium solani by using poisoned food technique were evaluated. Results indicated that all examined monoterpenes have displayed antifungal activity under different tested concentrations. Further more. NEs-monoterpenes reduced significantly the linear growth of all tested pathogens than pure monoterpenes. NEs citral and geraniol ranked the first for their effective antifungal compounds on the tested fungi with EC 50 values of 31.31 and 49.41 µg/ml on R. solani, 48.21 and 54.16 µg/ml on P. digitatum and 83.61 and 100.75 µg/ml on F. solani, respectively. Carbendazim fungicide was the reference in this study. NEs citral and geraniol were induced effective defense responses in vivo in tomato plants against R. solani at a rate of 1000 mg/L. Determination in the leaves after 0, 1, 3, 7 and 15 days of inoculation for polyphenoloxidase (PPO), peroxidase (POD) as well as total phenolic content activities as defense-related enzymes were measured. A significant increase in PPO, POD activities and total phenol content were detected. Results, also, showed that to reflect the resistance and susceptibility nature of tomato cultivars against the pathogenic fungi, R. solani., POD and PPO activities can be considered as biochemical markers. The obtained results indicated that the elicitor's NEs-citral and geraniol have brought about defense reaction in tomato plants towards the pathogenic fungi. These effective NEs monoterpenes could be effective potentially and environmentally safe to control tomato damping-off disease.

Fusarium oxysporum. f. sp. lycopersici (FOT) causes tomato fusarium wilt, one of the critical fungal diseases causing severe losses in tomato production in Egypt. Eight isolates of F. oxysporum. f. sp. lycopersici were isolated from infected tomato plants collected from six Egyptian governorates. FOT4, FOT2, and FOT5 isolates were highly virulent, while FOT6 and FOT8 were moderately virulent, and FOT7, FOT3, and FOT1 were weakly virulent. All tested ISSRs primers were polymorphic and produced 81 DNA loci of various molecular sizes. DNA fragment patterns analysis showed 37 monomorphic and 44 polymorphic bands, with 54.32% polymorphism between the tested isolates. Among the tested isolates, primer UMC-840 had the highest level of polymorphism (85.71%), while primer HB-13 had the lowest level (33.33%). Dendrogram and ISSR band patterns were analyzed using the UPGMA method to detect the relationship between the eight isolates. The highest genetic homology (82.9%) was observed between FOT4 and FOT3 isolates, while the lowest genetic homology (63.5%) was observed between FOT1 and FOT2 isolates. The eight isolates were classified into three main clusters (A, B, and C). Cluster A includes two sub-clusters; sub-cluster A1 is divided into two groups, group1 consists of two subgroups, subgroup1 include FOT 6 isolate, and subgroup 2 includes FOT4, FOT3, and FOT5 isolates (FOT4 and FOT5 were high virulent isolates), group2 has FOT8 isolate. Sub-cluster A2 includes FOT6 isolate. However, cluster B includes the FOT1 isolate, and cluster C includes the FOT2 isolate.

The aim of this work is to study the effect of Paecilomyces, Bacillus and Trichoderma as a biocontrol against M. javanica and treatment times of biological control application on pepper under greenhouse conditions. A total of 75 plastic pots were divided into seven experimental groups. The first group was kept without infection as healthy control. Two weeks later, the pots of the other groups were inoculated with roughly 5000 eggs and j2 / pot. The second group, which acted as an infected control, was kept without treatment The third to sixth groups were treated with bioagents (Paecilomyces (P.), Bacillus (B.), Trichoderma (T.) and Paecilomyces + Bacillus+ Trichoderma (P.B.T.), respectively. The 7 th group received Vydate (nematicide). The 3 rd to 6 th groups were divided into three subgroups which received biological treatments at three phases (Before-With-After) infection. These four biological control treatments induced a significant decrease in disease parameter compared with control. The highest re-duction% in galls, egg masses and number of J2/250 cm3 of soil was obtained with Vydate application followed by those obtained with P.B.T when applicated before-, with-and after-infection then Paecilomyces when applicated before-and with-infection than the other treatments. All of the tested biological controls caused significant increases in the growth parameter of pepper (GPP). Highest GPP was obtained with biological control application before-and with-infection.

In the present study and under greenhouse conditions, tomato plants cv. Albium, grown in potted soil inoculated with the early blight fungus A. solani, were treated with abscisic acid (ABA), salicylic acid (SA), and potassium silicate (PS) abiotic inducers, singly, and in combination with the biotic inducer Trichoderma harzianum. The different tested inducers significantly decreased the intensity (severity) of early blight disease on tomato, as well as some growth characteristics, photosynthetic capacity, defense-related enzymes and expression analysis of the PR1, PR3 and PR5 genes using Real Time-q PCR. PS+ Trichoderma showed the lowest disease intensity, followed by ABA+ Trichoderma, and Trichoderma treatment had the highest disease intensity when compared to untreated inoculated control. PS + Trichoderma, ABA+ Trichoderma, and SA+ Trichoderma were also the most effective for the best growth characteristics (fresh shoot, dry shoot, fresh root, dry root weight, and total fruits weight/plant).Photosynthetic pigment content was significantly increased with all treatments by chemical inducer and T. harzianum compared with A. solani treatment. PS + Trichoderma was the most effective and significantly enhanced chlorophyll "A" and chlorophyll "B"content comparing with the A. solani treatment, while, the highest level of carotene content was observed with alt+ABA+ Trichoderma treatment at 2days post inoculation. Peroxidase (POD), polyphenol oxidase (PPO) and Phenylalanine Ammonia-Lyase (PAL) enzymes activity and PR1, PR2 and PR5 gene expressions were significantly increased in all treatments with chemical inducer comparing with the treatment by A.solani, In addition to the treatment by chemical inducer combined with Trichoderma were the most effective compared with chemical inducer alone. The maximum POD, PAL activities and PR1gene expression were observed with alt+PS + Trichoderma followed by alt+ABA+ Trichoderma while, PR2, PR5 gene expressions and POD activity reached the highest level with alt+PS+ Trichoderma followed by alt+SA+ Trichoderma and alt+ABA+ Trichoderma. Trichoderma was of the highest rate of the number of cfu in treatment with alt+PS+ Trichoderma with cfu was 5.9 x10, while the number of cfu in treatment with alt+ABA + Trichoderma was 3.77 x10 7 and the treatment with alt+SA + Trichoderma was 3.68 x10 7 .