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to examine the efficacy of the fungus Trichoderma harzianum, culture age, inoculum type, application time, fungal extract, compost and bacterial strain on Striga hermonthica germination and sorghum infestation. The highest significant (P≤0.05) inhibition on S. hermonthica germination was obtained at 10 days by T. harzianum culture as compared to both controls. Application of all T. harzianum aqueous and ethyl acetate extracts concentrations significantly (P≤0.05) reduced S. hermonthica seed germination as compared to the corresponding control. T. harzianum inoculum extracted by ethyl acetate reduced germination by 97%. T. harzianum aqueous 100% induced germination during conditioning by 64 % in response to GR24 (0.1ppm). All types of T. harzianum inoculum (Autoclaved, culture and filtrate) significantly (P≤0.05) reduced germination, with application of T. harzianum culture filtrate gave the highest reduction on germination as compared to control and other inoculums. Application of the 3 inoculums at 2 hours reduced germination percentage more than at 4 hours. Filtrate and culture inoculums at 2 hours reduced germination by 79 and 68%, respectively. The combination of compost 100%+ T. harzianum + BMP+Flavobacterium reduced germination by 68%. The greenhouse results showed that the combination of compost plus BMP+ Flavobacterium gave lowest number of S. hermonthica emergence and the highest sorghum plant height. The combinations of compost with T. harzianum and with BMP+ Flavobacterium significantly reduced S. hermonthica dry weight, increased sorghum shoot and root dry weight insignificantly as compared to the control.

Field trials were carried out to test the effect of nitrogen fertilization on the growth, stalks and juice yield, sugar content and ethanol production of sweet sorghum. The experiments were carried out on winter 2013 in the Domonstration Farm of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Khartoum, Shambat and Experimental Farm of the Soba Research Station for Reclamation of Saline and Sodic soils. The treatments comprised the addition of nitrogen fertilizer (urea) at three levels (0, 43 and 86 Kg N ha-1) and two sweet sorghum genotypes (Baladi and RSSS.11), arranged in randomized complete block design replicated 4 times. Results indicated that there were significant (P ≥ 0.05) differences between genotypes in stem diameter at Soba location, stalk height and leaves area at Shambat location, number of green leaves per plant, stalk juice and ethanol yield in both locations. With the genotype RSSS.11 generally superior over genotype Baladi. Nitrogen fertilization increased significantly (P ≥ 0.05) number of green leaves per plant and leaves area at Shambat location and plant height and juice and ethanol yield in both locations. With the Soba location recorded the highest values over Shambat location and 86 kg N ha-1 recorded the highest ethanol yield (255.6l h-1).