Sudad K. Al Taweel

A field experiment is conducted at the College of engineering sciences - University of Baghdad during the growing spring season of 2021 to assess the effects of different concentrations of selected plant growth regulators on the scopolamine content of Black European henbane (Hyoscyamus niger L.). Mepiquat chloride (MC) is applied at 500, 1000, and 1500 mg L⁻¹, Alar is applied at 1000, 2000, 3000 mg L⁻¹ while ethephon (EP) is applied at 100 and 200 mg L⁻¹, in addition to an untreated control. The results show that plant growth regulators have a significant effect on most traits studied. The number of branches is not significantly affected by most treatments; however, ethephon at 200 mg L⁻¹ produces the highest number of branches per plant (9.62 branches). Chlorophyll content increases significantly with Alar treatments, particularly in 2000 and 3000 mg L⁻¹, which record the highest SPAD values of 58.00 and 56.95, respectively. Mepiquat chloride at 500 and 1000 mg L⁻¹ maximizes leaf dry weight per plant and total dry leaf yield. In terms of secondary metabolite production, the maximum increase in scopolamine content is observed with MC at 1500 mg L⁻¹, Alar at 1000 mg L⁻¹, and ethephon at 100 and 200 mg L⁻¹, which increase scopolamine levels by 2.32, 1.96, 1.73, and 1.70 times, respectively, compared to the control treatment.

Quinoa is a nutrient-dense and stress-tolerant crop gaining global attention, yet its bioactive compounds and functional qualities remain inadequately studied in many cultivation environments. Although rich in protein, essential amino acids and health-promoting phytochemicals, several varieties are still poorly characterised. Therefore, a research study was conducted at the University of Baghdad's College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences in 2024. This study aims to identify the phytochemical constituents of Quinoa seeds cultivated in the central region of Iraq. It further seeks to characterize key nutritional and medicinal components, including the amino acid profile, minerals, vitamins, saponins, phytic acid, and secondary bioactive compounds present in the methanolic extract of quinoa seeds. The proximate composition of quinoa seed flour showed a moisture content of 16.9%, protein 8.3%, lipids 5.04%, ash 3.1%, crude fiber 2.15%, and carbohydrates 64.51%. Additionally, raw quinoa seeds exhibited high and well-balanced levels of most essential amino acids (17 amino acids in total), with glutamic acid (2.74%), arginine (1.52%), leucine (1.96%), lysine (0.90%), and glycine (0.90%). These amino acids were also detected at concentrations of 1132, 460, 283, 220, 82.55, and 33.33 ppm, respectively. GC–MS analysis revealed the presence of several bioactive and medicinal compounds, with Curcumol (35.59%), linoleic acid (14.98%), vitamin E (7.07%), and 3,4,5-trimethoxycinnamic acid (5.56%) identified as the major constituents of quinoa seeds. Furthermore, quinoa seed flour contained appreciable amounts of vitamins, including vitamin C (1.55 mg/kg), vitamin B1 (0.08 mg/kg), vitamin B3 (0.12 mg/kg), vitamin B6 (10.12 mg/kg), vitamin B12 (1.10 mg/kg), and vitamin D3 (46,244 IU/kg), all of which contribute to its antioxidant potential. Quinoa seeds also possess certain therapeutic compounds such as phytic acid (1.1%) and saponins (3.4%). Overall, these findings provide valuable information supporting the nutritional, functional, and medicinal potential of quinoa for future food and feed processing applications.

Caraway is a medicinal and aromatic plant valued for its essential oil, yet its yield and oil quality are highly sensitive to nutrient availability. Heavy reliance on chemical fertilisers increases production costs and contributes to environmental degradation, while the potential of organic fertilisers remains underutilized. Based on this, a field experiment was conducted at the College of Agriculture in Fayoum, Egypt, during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons. This work aims to investigate the effects of single additions of organic fertilizers, cattle and poultry manure and of combined additions of organic fertilizers with mineral fertilizers on the growth, yield, chemical composition, and essential oil content of caraway plant. The three amendments were applied at five rates: 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% alone or in combination as dual or triple treatments. The results showed that integrating a mixture of cattle and poultry manure (50%) with mineral fertilizers (50%) on caraway plants significantly increased seed yield and essential oil yield, as well as yield per plant and per hectare. Moreover, the highest number of umbels was observed without the use of any mineral fertilisers (i.e., 50% of both cattle and poultry manure). As well as cattle and poultry manures, these can be mixed with mineral fertilizers and yield the highest results in all studied parameters of caraway plants, without depending entirely on chemical fertilizers. Hence, it is highly advisable to mix the organic manures (cattle and poultry) along with 25% of mineral fertilisers to help reduce the side effects and the problems of the chemical fertilizers and to achieve the highest results of most organically produced caraway yield.

The field experiment was conducted at the agricultural research station of the College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences, University of Baghdad, during the 2022 growing season. The study aimed to assess the impact of growth regulators, including Gibberellin (GA3) and Goltar Super (Paclobutrazol 25%), on the growth and yield of Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni, with an emphasis on leaf production and sweetness content. The experiment was conducted under two light - intensity conditions to evaluate the plant's response to these variables. The results revealed that plants attained their maximum height under E2 (92.67 cm); in contrast, plants cultivated in open field conditions demonstrated superior performance in terms of dry weight, leaf weight, and overall yield, registering 171.1 g, 101.7 g per plant, and 6.77 tons per hectare, respectively. Furthermore, plants treated with GA3 at 400 mg L-1 and 200 mg L-1 exhibited the greatest heights, reaching 87.85 cm and 84.83 cm, respectively. The highest dry weight (172.0 g) was recorded in plants treated with GA3 at 200 mg L-1, while the maximum leaf weight and yield were observed with Goltar at 1000 mg L-1 (88.6 g per plant and 5.89 tons per hectare) and GA3 at 200 mg L-1 (87.7 g per plant and 5.83 tons per hectare), respectively. However, none of the treatments led to significant differences in the percentages of Sativoside or Rebaudioside.

Roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.) is an annual shrub with a multipurpose crop with great economic potential to increase the income of farmers and processors in some countries worldwide from the export and local markets. Therefore, two successive seasons (2020 and 2021) were conducted to investigate how fertilization either organic manure or chemical fertilizer and foliar application of Appetizer (App) and their combination could affect the plant growth, yield, and chemical composition of Roselle plant. The treatments used App. solely at 3 rates (0, 4, 6 g L-1), in interaction with the total dose of organic manure or chemical fertilizer, or with a half dose of both fertilizers. Also, values were tested for each fertilizer applied solely at a total dose and in interaction at a half dose. It was found that spraying Roselle plants with App positively increased all parameters studied over the control. However, such an increase was greatly enhanced when the App. was combined with fertilization. Whereas, the highest records of growth characters, the chemical constituents of roselle plant, ascorbic acid, and carbohydrate resulted from half doses of chemical and organic manure with 4 and 6 g L-1 of App. While the highest values of all yield characters were obtained from the combination of chemical fertilizer at total dose and App at 4 g L-1, respectively, it was discovered, as well, that organic manure applied solely or combined with App gave high values that were so close and superior, in some cases, to those of chemical fertilizer. Hence, organically speaking, it is recommended that if there are fewer harmful and healthier products in agriculture, organic manure, either alone or combined with App, is still of high value for plant yield, especially when integrated with 4g L-1 App.

This study, which is considered the first of its kind in the world and the Arab homeland, was carried out in the laboratory of mushroom production belonging to the Medicinal Plant Unit/ College Of Agricultural Engineering Sciences/ University of Baghdad during the period from July 21, 2016, to December 30, 2018, aiming to isolate and purify the mycelium of the wild isolation in addition to the genetic and morphological identification of the mushroom Agaricus bellaniae. The obtained pure isolation was tagged in the American National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) with symbol MF987843.1, thus Iraq would be the second country in the world in which the mushroom is grown following the United States of America. The optimum temperature for the mycelium growth rate was also determined in the laboratory, as they ranged between 50 -60 ◦C. Furthermore, the dried fruit bodies were recognized qualitatively and quantitatively to identify their content of medicinally active compounds. Theyhave shown a high percentage of Linoleic acid (47.77%), total anti-oxidants, and total phenols in addition to the high content of essential chemicals including high protein percentage (44%), mineral elements- selenium in particular (0.369 ppm), and amino acid where glutamic and aspartic acids recorded the highest percentage, reached 4.02% and 2.226% respectively.

Abnormal production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is an undesirable event which occurs in plants due to stress. To meet this event, plants synthesize ROS-neutralizing compounds, including the non-enzymatic oxidant scavenger known as vitamin C: ascorbic acid (AsA). In addition to scavenging ROS, AsA modulates many vital functions in stressed or non-stressed plants. Thus, two-season (2018/2019 and 2019/2020) trials were conducted to study the effect of integrative treatment (seed soaking + foliar spray) using 1.0 or 2.0 mM AsA vs. distilled water (control) on the growth, seed yield, and oil yield of parsley plants under three sowing dates (SDs; November, December, and January, which represent adverse conditions of late sowing) vs. October as the optimal SD (control). The ion balance, osmotic-modifying compounds, and different antioxidants were also studied. The experimental layout was a split plot in a completely randomized block design. Late sowing (December and January) noticeably reduced growth traits, seed and oil yield components, and chlorophyll and nutrient contents. However, soluble sugar, proline, and AsA contents were significantly increased along with the activities of catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD). Under late sowing conditions, the use of AsA significantly increased growth, different yields, essential oil fractions, CAT and SOD activities, and contents of chlorophylls, nutrients, soluble sugars, free proline, and AsA. The interaction treatments of SDs and AsA concentrations indicated that AsA at a concentration of 2 mM was more efficient in conferring greater tolerance to adverse conditions of late sowing in parsley plants. Therefore, this study recommends 2.0 mM AsA for integrative (seed soaking + foliar spraying) treatment to prolong the sowing period of parsley seeds (from October up to December) and avoid damage caused by adverse conditions of late sowing.

A biostimulant is any microorganism or substance used to enhance the efficiency of nutrition, tolerance to abiotic stress and/or quality traits of crops, depending on its contents from nutrients. Plant biostimulants like honey bee (HB) and silymarin (Sm) are a strategic trend for managing stressed crops by promoting nutritional and hormonal balance, regulating osmotic protectors, antioxidants, and genetic potential, reflecting plant growth and productivity. We applied diluted honey bee (HB) and silymarin-enriched honey bee (HB- Sm) as foliar nourishment to investigate their improving influences on growth, yield, nutritional and hormonal balance, various osmoprotectant levels, different components of antioxidant system, and genetic potential of chili pepper plants grown under NaCl-salinity stress (10 dS m^‒1). HB significantly promoted the examined attributes and HB-Sm conferred optimal values, including growth, productivity, K⁺/Na⁺ ratio, capsaicin, and Sm contents. The antioxidative defense components were significantly better than those obtained with HB alone. Conversely, levels of oxidative stress markers (superoxide ions and hydrogen peroxide) and parameters related to membrane damage (malondialdehyde level, stability index, ionic leakage, Na⁺, and Cl⁻ contents) were significantly reduced. HB-Sm significantly affects inactive gene expression, as a natural biostimulator silencing active gene expression. SCoT primers were used as proof in salt-treated or untreated chili pepper plants. There were 41 cDNA amplicons selected by SCoT-primers. Twenty of them were EcDNA amplicons (cDNA-amplicons that enhanced their genes by one or more treatments) representing 49% of all cDNA amplicons, whereas 7 amplicons for ScDNA (whose genes were silenced in one or more treatments) represented 17%, and 14 McDNA (monomorphic cDNA-amplicons with control) amplicons were represented by 34% from all cDNA amplicons. This indicates the high effect of BH-Sm treatments in expression enhancement of some inactive genes and their silenced effect for expression of some active genes, also confirming that cDNA-SCoT markers succeeded in detection of variable gene expression patterns between the untreated and treated plants. In conclusion, HB-Sm as a natural multi-biostimulator can attenuate salt stress effects in chili pepper plants by remodeling the antioxidant defense system and ameliorating plant productivity.

Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni is a little bush, which is cultivated on a large scale in many countries for medicinal purposes and used as a natural sweetener in food products. The present work aims to conduct a protocol for stevia propagation in vitro to produce and introduce Stevia rebaudiana plants as a new sweetener crop to Egyptian agriculture. To efficiently maximize its propagation, it is important to study the influence of stress factors on the growth and development of Stevia rebaudiana grown in vitro. Two stevia varieties were investigated (Sugar High A3 and Spanti) against salt stress. Leaves were used as the source of explants for callus initiation, regeneration, multiplication and rooting. Some stress-related traits, i.e., photosynthetic pigments, proline contents, and enzyme activity for peroxidase (POD), polyphenol oxidase (PPO), and malate dehydrogenase (MDH) were studied. Murashig and Skoog (MS) medium was supplemented with four NaCl concentrations: 500, 1000, 2000, and 3000 mgL⁻¹, while a salt-free medium was used as the control. The data revealed that salinity negatively affected all studied characters: the number of surviving calli, regeneration%, shoot length, the number of multiple shoots, number of leaf plantlets⁻¹, number of root plantlets⁻¹, and root length. The data also revealed that Sugar High A3 is more tolerant than Spanti. The total chlorophyll content decreased gradually with increasing NaCl concentration. However, the opposite was true for proline content. Isozyme’s fractionation exhibited high levels of variability among the two varieties. Various biochemical parameters associated with salt tolerance were detected in POD. Namely, POD4, POD6, POD 9 at an Rf of 0.34, 0.57, and 0.91 in the Sugar High A3 variety under high salt concentration conditions, as well as POD 10 at an Rf of 0.98 in both varieties under high salt concentrations. In addition, the overexpression of POD 5 and POD 10 at Rf 0.52 and 0.83 was found in both varieties at high NaCl concentrations. Biochemical parameters associated with salt tolerance were detected in PPO (PPO1, PPO2 and PPO4 at an Rf of 0.38, 0.42 and 0.62 in the Sugar High A3 variety under high salt concentrations) and MDH (MDH 3 at an Rf of 0.40 in both varieties at high salt concentrations). Therefore, these could be considered as important biochemical markers associated with salt tolerance and could be applied in stevia breeding programs (marker-assisted selection). This investigation recommends stevia variety Sugar High A3 to be cultivated under salt conditions.

A laboratory experiment was carried out at the College of Agriculture University of Baghdad in 2017. The aim was to improve the anatomical and physiological traits of broad bean seedling under salt stress by soaking it in salicylic acid. The concentrations of salicylic acid were 0, 10, and 20 mg L-1 and the electrical conductivity levels were 0, 3, and 6 dS m-1. The complete randomized design was used with four replications. The increasing of salicylic acid concentration up to 10 mg L-1 led to increasing the stem cortex thickness, stem vascular bundles thickness, and root cortex thickness significantly by (34.9,36.7,and 55 µm) respectively, while the treatment of 20 mg L-1 led to decreasing these traits by (28.2, 27.8, and 48.1 µm), compared to control treatment (33.8, 35.9, and 53.8 µm), respectively, and the interaction of studied factors led to increasing those traits up to 10 mg L-1 and then decreased up to 20 mg L-1 of salicylic acid under each level of electrical conductivity. Therefore, it is recommended to soak the broad been seeds with 10 mg L-1 salicylic acid to improve the anatomical traits of seedlings and increase their tolerance to salt stress up to 6 dS m-1.