Natural products are compounds produced by living organisms and can be divided into two main categories: primary (PMs) and secondary metabolites (SMs). Plant PMs are crucial for plant growth and reproduction since they are directly involved in living cell processes, whereas plant SMs are organic substances directly involved in plant defense and resistance. SMs are divided into three main groups: terpenoids, phenolics and nitrogen-containing compounds. The SMs contain a variety of biological capabilities that can be used as flavoring agents, food additives, plant-disease control, strengthen plant defenses against herbivores and, additionally, it can help plant cells to be better adapted to the physiological stress response. The current review is mainly focusing on certain key elements related to the significance, biosynthesis, classification, biochemical characterization and medical/pharmaceutical uses of the major categories of plant SMs. In addition, the usefulness of SMs in controlling plant diseases, boosting plant resistance and as potential natural, safe, eco-friendly substitutes for chemosynthetic pesticides were also reported in this review.

Four novel ligand-metal complexes were synthesized through the reaction of Fe(III), pleaseCo(II), Zn(II), and Zr(IV) with Schiff base gemifloxacin reacted with ortho-phenylenediamine (GMFX-o-phdn) to investigate their biological activities. Elemental analysis, FT-IR, 1H NMR, UV-visible, molar conductance, melting points, magnetic susceptibility, and thermal analyses have been carried out for insuring the chelation process. The antimicrobial activity was carried out against Monilinia fructicola, Aspergillus flavus, Penicillium italicum, Botrytis cinerea, Escherichia coli, Bacillus cereus, Pseudomonas fluorescens, and P. aeruginosa. The radical scavenging activity (RSA%) was in vitro evaluated using ABTS method. FT-IR spectra indicated that GMFX-o-phdn chelated with metal ions as a tetradentate through oxygen of carboxylate group and nitrogen of azomethine group. The data of infrared, 1HNMR, and molar conductivity indicate that GMFX–o-phdn reacted as neutral tetra dentate ligand (N2O2) with metal ions through the two oxygen atoms of the carboxylic group (oxygen containing negative charge) and two nitrogen atoms of azomethine group (each nitrogen containing a lone pair of electrons) (the absent of peak corresponding to ν(COOH) at 1715 cm−1, the shift of azomethine group peak from 1633 cm−1 to around 1570 cm−1, the signal at 11 ppm of COOH and the presence of the chloride ions outside the complex sphere). Thermal analyses (TG-DTG/DTA) exhibited that the decaying of the metal complexes exists in three steps with the final residue metal oxide. The obtained data from DTA curves reflect that the degradation processes were exothermic or endothermic. Results showed that some of the studied complexes exhibited promising antifungal activity against most of the tested fungal pathogens, whereas they showed higher antibacterial activity against E. coli and B. cereus and low activity against P. fluorescens and P. aeruginosa. In addition, GMFX-o-phdn and its metal complexes showed strong antioxidant effect. In particular, the parent ligand and Fe(III) complex showed greater antioxidant capacity at low tested concentrations than that of other metal complexes where their IC50 were 169.7 and 164.6 µg/mL, respectively.

THIS APPLIED experiment was conducted at private farm (160 feddans), sustained of soil and water salinity, at km80 of cairo-alexandria desert road (the green wealth farms). four electromagnetic devise (6 inch) set up on the main sources of ground irrigation. one well for each agriculture sector apricot, peach, flame-seedless grape and thompson seedless grape sectors. these sectors has been irrigated by magnetic treated water (mtw), beginning of december2013, through a drip system.The results indicated that mtw has led to non-significant decrease of water salinity (only from 2.183.31-to 2.14-3.12 dsm-1), ph (from 8.2-8.3 to 8.258.15-), sar (from 6.47.7-to 5.6-6.0) and hypothetical nacl (from 57.37 -60.53% to 53.31-58.15%)Concerning the effect of mtw on soil chemical properties, the data showed that soil salinity was decreased after using mtw compared with the normal water. soil salinity was decreased from 4.88-6.15 dsm-1to 2.734.15-dsm-1 and 1.452.83-dsm-1 after one month and eight ones of the magnetic treatment, respectively. besides, ph values were reduced from 8.28.3-to 7.9-8.05 before and after magnetic treatment respectively. as well as the hypothetical nacl and mgcl2 were diminished from 21.5 meq/l and 8.0 meq/l to 6.3 and 3.0 meq/l through eight months from the treatment. it is worth mentioning that the magnetic irrigation had good effects on the availability of npk and micronutrients (fe, zn, cu and mn) all during fertilization season, entail the observed increasing on the yield of fruits. thus, the results indicated that the main beneficial of using mtw were in improving yield for apricot, peach, flame-seedless grape and thompson seedless grape to 40.0, 29.0 28.0 and 19.0 % respectively. also, raising the efficiency of water productivity to 40.2, 29.2,28.0 and 19.3. %, respectively.