Available online xxxKeywords: Evapotranspiration Growing degree days Spring wheat WUE HUE Neutron probe a b s t r a c t Estimation of actual evapotranspiration (ET a ) is an important part of agricultural water management in local and regional water balance studies. At the field scale, ET a is important in irrigation planning and scheduling and is an integral part of field management decision support tools. The conventional approach of estimating actual evapotranspiration is difficult and needs more calculations and extensive data on soil-plant-atmosphere. A field experiment was conducted to simplify the measurement and calculation of actual evapotranspiration by using thermal units (heat units) for spring wheat crop under trickle irrigation system in sandy soil. Two irrigation methods were applied; the first one (A) using the crop evapotranspiration (ET c ) that depends on whether parameters, and the second (B) is the depletion from field capacity which dependent on soil parameters. Three varieties of wheat namely Sids12, Misr2 and Gemmeza10 were cultivated on sand soil and treatments arranged in complete randomized block design with three replicates. Application of treatment (B) resulted in highly significant increase in yield production of Gemmeza10 and Misr2 as compared to treatment (A). Grain yield of different wheat varieties grown under treatment (B) could be ranked in the following descending order: Misr2 > Gemmeza10 > Sids12. While under treatment (A) it could be arranged in the following descending order: Misr2 > Sids12 > Gemmeza10. On the other hand, the overall means indicated non-significant difference between all wheat verities. The highest values of water and irrigation use efficiency as well as heat use efficiency were obtained with treatment (B). The equation used in the present study is available to estimate ET a under arid climate with drip irrigation system. journal h omepage: http :/ / www .e lsev ie r. co m/ lo cate/ j rras 1

The uidA gene, encoding for b-glucuronidase (GUS), is the most frequently used reporter gene in plants.As a reporter enzyme, GUS can be assayed both qualitatively and quantitatively. In wheat, there are numerous reports of failure in detecting GUS enzyme activity in tissues of transgenic plants, while other reports have suggested presence of b-glucuronidase inhibitor(s) in wheat tissues. In the present study, we show that the b-glucuronidase enzyme activity is not only tissue-specific but also genotype-dependent. Our data demonstrate that the glucuronic acid could be the candidate inhibitor for b-glucuronidase enzyme activity in wheat leaves and roots. It should be noted that the assays to detect b-glucuronidase enzyme activity in wheat should be interpreted carefully. Based on the data of our present study, we recommend studying the chemical pathways, the unintended effects and the possible loss-of-function of any candidate transgene prior to transformation experiments.

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Insects are well recognized as a source of potentially useful compounds for modern medicine. Development of anticancer drugs from natural resources has been performed throughout the world. In the present study, anticancer activity of the hemolymph and fat body of Sarcophaga argyrostoma third larval instars is assayed against human breast cancer cell line (MDA-MB-231 cells). The cytotoxicity of the hemolymph and fat body samples were determined. The results showed that growth of MDA-MB-231 cells was inhibited at different concentrations upon 24 h of exposure. There is no inhibitory activity against Vero cells under these experimental conditions. Protein profile of the hemolymph and fat body were extracted and separated using sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). Protein analysis showed differences in number of electrophoretic protein bands with different molecular weights between treated and control larvae. The present work assumes that hemolymph and fat body tissue have cytotoxicity against MDA-MB-231 cells and these results exhibit that larvae from S. argyrostoma could be used as a good source for developing anti-cancer agents and knowledge of these anti-cancer compounds will lead to better control of human disease.

The main objective of this work is to trace and measure the activity of natural radionuclides 226 Ra, 238 U, 232 Th and 40 K in sandy loam soil and leaves of Jew's-mallow plant (Corchorus olitorius). A pot experiment was carried out and Jew's-mallow was cultivated on sandy loam soil with six types of commercial and recommended fertilizers (NPK). The activity concentrations of 226 Ra, 238 U, 232 Th and 40 K in Bq kg -1 were measured using the high purity germanium detector to assess the effective dose of Jew's-mallow that is largely consumed by the Egyptian population. Gamma activities, at the end of growing season on sandy loam soil, contain a slightly higher concentration of natural radionuclides than the soil at the beginning, but still lower than the worldwide values. The transfer factor for 226 Ra, 238 U, 232 Th and 40 K from soil to Jew's-mallow plants was less than unity in all treatments. The estimated annual effective dose due to the ingestion of Jew's-mallow plant varied from 7.89 -21.5µSv y -1 , which indicated that fertilizer addition was not effective on the level of radionuclide in Jew's-mallow and it's safe for human consumption. M.A. Salama et al. 34 and 40 K) in Jew's-mallow plant fertilized with different fertilizers.