Population Fluctuations of the Major Lepidopteran Insect Pests of Date Palm at Al-Wahat Al-Baharia Region, Egypt.

<b>Background and Objective:</b> Several insect pests infest the date palm and its fruit in the field and storage causing economic damage and affecting the tree productivity from one year to another and from one location to another due to the pest's status in the field. Therefore, this study aimed to estimate the seasonal fluctuation of the important insect pests, <i>Arenipses sabella</i>, <i>Batrachedra amydraula</i> and <i>Ephestia</i> sp. during the 3 successive years in the date palm fields at Al-Wahat Al-Bahareia region in Egypt. <b>Materials and Methods:</b> Three light traps were used to capture insects for 3 years, 2018, 2019 and 2020. The survey was done every 2 weeks for the three above-mentioned insects. Each year was divided into five periods according to the production of date palms. Also, the correlation coefficient was estimated between the population fluctuations and meteorological data. <b>Results:</b> In all three seasons, the number of all these insects increased gradually from the beginning of January till the fruiting period (end of July). Then, the numbers decreased gradually starting from August till the end of the year. The correlation coefficient for all estimated pests was more than R = 0.7 except for <i>Ephestia</i> sp. with the humidity (R = 0.6049). <b>Conclusion:</b> All studied lepidopteran insects are presented during the whole year and fluctuated with the highest peak at the fruiting period. Moreover, the increase in temperature and decrease in humidity is correlated with the high numbers of these insects. This study could help control these pests with different methods according to their estimated populations of them.

Molecular Analysis of Date Palm Genetic Diversity Using Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and Inter-Simple Sequence Repeats (ISSRs).

The date palm is an ancient domesticated plant with great diversity and has been cultivated in the Middle East and North Africa for at last 5000 years. Date palm cultivars are classified based on the fruit moisture content, as dry, semidry, and soft dates. There are a number of biochemical and molecular techniques available for characterization of the date palm variation. This chapter focuses on the DNA-based markers random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR) techniques, in addition to biochemical markers based on isozyme analysis. These techniques coupled with appropriate statistical tools proved useful for determining phylogenetic relationships among date palm cultivars and provide information resources for date palm gene banks.

Bioreactor Steroid Production and Analysis of Date Palm Embryogenic Callus.

Several compounds and families of compounds of date palm secondary metabolites have been investigated. The analysis of date palm tissue has shown the abundance of secondary metabolites including phytosterols, e.g., steroids, an important group of pharmaceutical compounds. Biotechnology offers the opportunity to utilize cells, tissues, and organs grown in vitro and manipulated to obtain desired compounds. This chapter presents a protocol for the production, determination, and identification of steroids in date palm callus tissue. The addition of 0.01 mg/L pyruvic acid as a precursor to MS liquid culture medium enhances steroid production. In addition, the chapter describes the sterol analytical techniques based on gas-liquid chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.