and 2020 seasons. This investigation was carried out to estimate heterosis, combining ability, proportional contributions, genetic components and heritability estimates of some characters for six Egyptian cotton varieties as lines i.e

To manage natural resources and achieve agricultural sustainability, effective production strategies are required. For a healthier crop and a cleaner environment, reducing or eliminating chemical use is also a desirable goal. The goal of this study was to see how soil polyethylene mulch affected tomato crop output and quality. The Experimental Farm of the Faculty of Agriculture, Sohag University, Egypt, was used for two consecutive early summer seasons production. Manual weeding was used as a positive control treatment to compare its effect with black plastic mulch and herbicide on the growth, yield, and quality of two tomato hybrids (G.S-12 and Fayrouz). Weed density and biomass and economic profitability levels were also investigated. The use of black plastic mulch greatly enhanced all of the measured characteristics in both seasons, according to the data. i.e., vegetative traits, vitamin C content, total soluble solids, and N, P, and K leaves' concentrations. Data also revealed a superiority of G.S-12 hybrid over Fayrouz hybrid in most characters. Results showed a surprising effect for black plastic mulch treatment on smothering weed emergence compared with the conventional manual or chemical weed control treatments during the two seasons of considering. The hand-hoeing treatment proved to be the least viable weed control system among all treatments. This study recommends applying black plastic soil mulch in tomato production particularly in reclaimed soil conditions to reduce labor requirements and produce a higher, healthier output. In terms of gross margin and benefit-cost ratio (BCR) analyses, it also showed to be the optimum strategy.

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Mango fruits being climacteric have a short shelf life; and post-harvest dipping is considered as one of the most popular techniques to prolong its shelf life dipping based on starch, olive oil, beeswax and sodium benzoate have been evaluated with reference to the shelf life and quality of mango Naomi cultivar fruit harvested at full stage of maturity. The dipped and undipped (control) fruits were stored on the lab’s tables in the room conditions (25±5 <C and 65-70% R.H.), samples of each treatment were randomly taken every 4 days to evaluate after harvest dipping treatments effect during shelf life of fruits. Results indicated that every dipping treatment has a significant impact on the quality and shelf life of the fruit. The beeswax and olive oil treated mango fruits had the longest shelf life with good quality, while the shelf life of untreated (control) fruit was the shortest. The total soluble solids and sugar contents were also high in starch-treated fruit. The overall data conclude that beeswax was the best post-harvest dipping material, which might be due to the fact that beeswax is an antioxidant and antimicrobial as well as hydrophobic in nature.

Egypt is facing a major problem in the field of tomato seed production, as infection with the yellow tomato leaf curl virus (TYLCV) is one of the most important factors in the success of this important production process, which has an impact on national food security, in addition to facing the steady increase in the costs of importing tomato seeds in particular vegetable crop seeds in general. Therefore, the main objective of the current study is to study plant age-related induced resistance (ARIR) against tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) in tomato plants. Several research points were studied, respectively: first, the effect of plant age on resistance to TYLCV virus in tomato plants that is transmitted by whitefly. Second, the detection and identification of tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) in seeds obtained from seedlings of different ages (35 and 90 days old). Third, study the behavior of the whitefly in terms of the number of eggs and larvae, the percentage of the number of infected plants that showed symptoms of infection with the virus, and its relationship to the age of the seedlings. The results of this study proved that the age of the plant is closely related to the ability of the plant to withstand infection with the tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV). The DNA of the tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) was identified from a sample of seeds obtained from plants obtained from 35-day-old seedlings. On the contrary, the DNA of tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) was not detected in the seed sample obtained from plants produced from 90-day-old seedlings that were cultivated and adapted inside the nursery. The results also showed that in both protocols, using or without insecticides did not prevent the white fly from laying eggs and producing larvae on the plants. The increase was also gradual in the numbers of eggs and larvae of the white fly, as this activity peaked in the third week of transferring the seedlings to the open field, then those numbers decreased after the third week. This study also demonstrated the effect of positive seedling age (90 days old) on morphological traits related to vegetative growth, fruit production, and seed yield. Among the important benefits obtained was the ability to obtain seeds free of TYLCV in tomato plants, as well as the ability to remove nursery plants that showed early symptoms of the virus, and thus reduce the economic losses caused by the whitefly through the spread of the virus in the open fields.