Eggplant is one of the important economic vegetable crop which is attacked by several serious diseases such as wilt. Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. melongenae was isolated from a naturally occurring epidemic of wilt in eggplant plants grown in New Valley governorate. In this study, the antagonistic activity of five Trichoderma species (Trichoderma spirale, T. hamatum, T. polysoprium, T. harzianum and T. viride) against F. oxysporium f. sp. melongenae was evaluated using dual culture technique. T. viride (isolate TVM-5) and T. hamatum (isolate THM-2) showed the highest antagonistic activity, while T. spirale (TSM-1) was the lowest one. In pot experiment, the obtained data showed that all Trichoderma species reduced significantly area under wilt progress curve caused by F. oxysporum f. sp. melongenae. Trichoderma viride and T. hamatum recorded the highest reduction of area under wilt progress curve (AUWPC) (244.0 and 325.33 AUWPC as compared to 1125.33 in control treatment, respectively).  Under field conditions results showed that, these treatments significantly reduced AUWPC and increased all tested plant growth parameters (Plant height, No. of branches plant-1) and fruit yield components (number of fruits plant-1, fruits yield plant-1, fruit weight, No of fruit Kg-1, fruit length, fruit diameters and fruits yield fed.-1) compared with control during growing seasons (2011-2012 and 2012-2013). Trichoderma viride and T. hamatum were the best biocontrol agents as manifested by the significant reduction in both disease severity and increase plant growth parameters and fruit yield components.

T HREE EXPERIMENTS were conducted at the Vegetable Experimental Farm, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University during two summer seasons 2015 and 2016 to study the effect of irrigation regime and salicylic acid foliar application on two cowpea cultivars. Each experiment subjected to one of three tested irrigation levels (70, 50 and 30 % of the available water which equal soil moisture tension of 0.35, 0.60 and 0.85 bar, respectively). Each experiment was laid out using strip plot arrangement in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. Three salicylic levels (0, 150, 300 ppm) were randomized in horizontal plots while the two cowpea cultivars (Azmirly and Cream 7) were allocated in vertical plots. The results showed that the irrigation water deficit significantly decreased all the studied traits. Concerning salicylic acid (SA) application, obtained data revealed that increasing the SA concentrations from 0 (control) to 300 ppm, increased the plant ability to withstand drought. Also, Azmirly cultivar was better than Cream 7 for all studied traits. The highest mean values of seed yield per hectar were obtained from Azmirly cultivar which was irrigated at 70 % of the available water and sprayed with 300 ppm salicylic acid as foliar application. Protein patterns were analyzed in leaves of Azmirly and Cream 7 cultivars to study the changes in gene expression after one and two weeks of treatments with 0, 150 and 300 ppm of salicylic acid (SA). SA induced the expression of 11 new proteins as compared to the control treatment.

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rapidly alters gene expression and protein synthesis (Nemhauser et al., 2006 andGoda et al., 2008). Overall, hormone-responsive genes include those involved in hormone regulation, metabolism, signal transduction, transcription, protein synthesis, cell expansion and division. In addition, genes regulated by hormones are involved in hormone distribution and homeostasis as well as in negative transcriptional feedback. In Arabidopsis, hormone treatments for short periods (<1 h) changes the expression of ~10-300 genes, with roughly equal numbers of genes repressed and activated (Nemhauser et al., 2006, Goda et al., 2008and Paponov et al., 2008. Several scientists had studied the changes in gene expression and protein synthesis in different plant species treated with GA 3 (

The present experiment was carried out in the Experimental Farm of Vegetable Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University, Egypt, during the two seasons of 2014 and 2016. The soil texture of the experimental site was clay with a pH average of 7.65. Three irrigation periods (every 10, 20 and 30 days) and three eggplant genotypes (Hanen F1, Classic F1 and Alabaster F1) were used to estimate their effects on yield and quality of eggplant crop under Assiut conditions. Data showed that the 10 days irrigation treatment (control) significantly recorded the highest plant fresh and dry weight in the first and second seasons, respectively. The highest significant values of average plant height and stem diameter were recorded from 10 days irrigation intervals treatment in the second season only. However, in the first season, plots irrigated every 30 days intervals significantly produced the highest average branch numbers. The effect of eggplant genotypes was more constant in both seasons, Hanen F1 genotype, significantly gave the highest average plant height, stem diameter, average number of branch, plant fresh weight and plant dry weight. However, Classic F1 genotype significantly produced the lowest values of the growth parameters.