Wheat is a major nutritional cereal crop that has economic and strategic value worldwide. The sustainability of this extraordinary crop is facing critical challenges globally, particularly leaf rust disease, which causes endless problems for wheat farmers and countries and negatively affects humanity’s food security. Developing effective marker-assisted selection programs for leaf rust resistance in wheat mainly depends on the availability of deep mining of resistance genes within the germplasm collections. This is the first study that evaluated the leaf rust resistance of 50 Egyptian wheat varieties at the adult plant stage for two successive seasons and identified the absence/presence of 28 leaf rust resistance (Lr) genes within the studied wheat collection. The field evaluation results indicated that most of these varieties demonstrated high to moderate leaf rust resistance levels except Gemmeiza 1, Gemmeiza 9, Giza162, Giza 163, Giza 164, Giza 165, Sids 1, Sids 2, Sids 3, Sakha 62, Sakha 69, Sohag 3 and Bany Swif 4, which showed fast rusting behavior. On the other hand, out of these 28 Lr genes tested against the wheat collection, 21 Lr genes were successfully identified. Out of 15 Lr genes reported conferring the adult plant resistant or slow rusting behavior in wheat, only five genes (Lr13, Lr22a, Lr34, Lr37, and Lr67) were detected within the Egyptian collection. Remarkedly, the genes Lr13, Lr19, Lr20, Lr22a, Lr28, Lr29, Lr32, Lr34, Lr36, Lr47, and Lr60, were found to be the most predominant Lr genes across the 50 Egyptian wheat varieties. The molecular phylogeny results also inferred the same classification of field evaluation, through grouping genotypes characterized by high to moderate leaf rust resistance in one cluster while being highly susceptible in a separate cluster, with few exceptions.

The present investigation aims to highlight the role of salt priming in mitigating salt stress on faba bean. In the absence of priming, the results reflected an increase in H2O2 generation and lipid peroxidation in plants subjected to 200 mM salt shock for one week, accompanied by a decline in growth, photosynthetic pigments, and yield. As a defense, the shocked plants showed enhancements in ascorbate peroxidase (APX), catalase (CAT), glutathione reductase (GR), peroxidase (POX), and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities. Additionally, the salt shock plants revealed a significant increase in phenolics and proline content, as well as an increase in the expression levels of glutathione (GSH) metabolism-related genes (the L-ascorbate peroxidase (L-APX) gene, the spermidine synthase (SPS) gene, the leucyl aminopeptidase (LAP) gene, the aminopeptidase N (AP-N) gene, and the ribonucleo-side-diphosphate reductase subunit M1 (RDS-M) gene). On the other hand, priming with increasing concentrations of NaCl (50–150 mM) exhibited little significant reduction in some growth- and yield-related traits. However, it maintained a permanent alert of plant defense that enhanced the expression of GSH-related genes, proline accumulation, and antioxidant enzymes, establishing a solid defensive front line ameliorating osmotic and oxidative consequences of salt shock and its injurious effect on growth and yield.

Maize is considered a key food crop worldwide. In Africa, the crop yields were severely reduced in 2016 when the fall armyworm (FAW), Spodoptera frugiperda, entered Western Africa and quickly expanded throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Although Egypt is a large corn-growing and consuming country, the genetic divergence of FAW has not been investigated. In order to analyze genetic variance of Corn (C) and Rice (R) strains, FAW larvae were gathered from 3 different governorates (Ismailia, Qalyubia and Assiut) throughout Egypt. The study analyzed genetic polymorphisms within the triosephosphate isomerase (Tpi) gene locus and Sfrugi76 microsatellite motif across the collected samples. The findings showed that the gTpi183 site exhibited polymorphism across all collected samples. Other strain-discriminatory markers, such as gTpi168 and gTpi180, showed clear polymorphism, while gTpi192 and gTpi198 lacked strain specificity. The Microsatellite typing of Sfrugi76 revealed a repeat-length polymorphism without a distinctive pattern within governorates, suggesting ecological or host plant influences. The phylogenetic analysis of Tpi gene sequences showed mixed clustering among governorates, with Assiut samples exhibiting low genetic diversity and tight clustering, likely due to host-specific adaptation or isolation. In contrast, Ismailia samples displayed greater genetic variation, while Qalyubia samples showed intermediate identities, hinting at hybridization or ancestral gene flow. Similar clustering patterns were observed in the microsatellite-based dendrogram, reinforcing the impact of ecological and agricultural influences on strain distribution. This study provides important information on FAW genetic diversity in Egypt, which can be used for effective management of FAW.