Biochar application is a promising sustainable strategy for enhancing soil properties thus crop production. However, biochar application to soil certainly alters its biological and physical properties, and could require extra costs. Therefore, biochar suitability to agroecosystems must be proactively estimated. The advantage of biochar addition to poor fertile or weathered soils has been well studies, however, its feasibility to fertile soil under low quality (saline) irrigation water was not frequently studied. Consequently, this work investigates the hypothesis of whether the application of biochar at a rate of 4.8 tons/ha to fertile soil (Nile Valley, Giza, Egypt) would ameliorate the negative effects of saline irrigation regime (3000 ppm) on tomato crop and soil. The results of two seasons experiments showed that saline irrigation significantly reduced tomato crop yield by an average reduction ratio of 51%, and biochar addition could not compensate such reduction. Furthermore, biochar did not reduce accumulated Na+ in fruits or roots. Tomato fruits produced from biochar-added soil were lower in TSS levels (41.7% reduction ratio) yet larger in diameter by approximately 1.5-fold increase. Interestingly, biochar addition into soil greatly promotes the length of stem-borne lateral roots and elevates the expression of LeNR (encodes nitrate reductase enzyme) in leaves yet under fresh irrigation regime. For soil properties, biochar application enhanced the soil properties under either saline or fresh water irrigation conditions. Collectively, it is assumed that biochar application to fertile soil in Nile Valley of Egypt could not alleviate tomato fruits yield reduction affected by applied saline irrigation regime.

The aim of the experiment was to study the influence of lighting programmes on compensatory growth and carcass criteria of broiler chickens. A total number of 120 (one hundred twenty) Ross broiler chicks, one day old were equally divided into 3 treatments of 40 chicks each and further divided into 4 replicates (10 chicks/ replicate). The experimental lighting regime treatments were as follows: continuous, light stimulation and intermittent lighting. The results showed that the birds exposed to T1, and C achieved the highest BW and BWG compared to birds exposed to intermittent lighting. During the period from (0-6) wks of age, birds in groups (C) and (T1) achieved an increase in BWG and improved FCR than the group in (T2). In conclusion results suggested the application of a light stimulation better performance minimizing electricity costs.