Journal of Basrah Researches (Sciences)

This study was carried out during the growth season in 2004 at a College of Agriculture /Basrah University. The aim of the study was testing the best concentration for repining fruit Brame date palm cv .The fruit was avalanche for five minute in 0, 500, 1000, 1500 ppm ethephon .The result have shown the 500 ppm lead to a high significant in TSS , reducing sugar and respiration , but there were not significant in sucrose .The total acidity was decreased at 500 ppm ,the high ripening significant at 500 ppm ,it reached 70% and no significant change at 1000,1500 ppm was noticed .

The Prawn, Parapenopsis stylifera was collected from February 1999 to February 2000 from north – west Arabian Gulf. Population density ranged from 336 Ind./ 1000 m2 in February 2000 to 1220 Ind./ 1000 m2 in June 1999. Male total length ranged from 30 – 90 mm, whereas those of the female ranged from 30 – 120 mm. Average growth rate of females was 0.33 mm / day, while that of the male 0.2 mm / day. The sex ratio indicated a preponderance of females throughout of the year.

This study was conducted in the Laboratory of Date Palm Research Center- Basrah University to determine the Cytological changes associated with the contamination of callus of Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera) cultivars {Um-aldahen ;Hilllwai; Shuwayythi; Braim; Barhee and Sayer}with fungi which identified as Alternaria alternata ; Aspergillus clavatus; A.niger ; Penicillium spp; Rhizopus sp.; Scytalidium lignicola ; Stemphylium sp. and Ulocladium atrum. The results of extracellular enzymatic activity test proved that fungi were varied in their ability to secrete Phenol oxidase and Cellulase enzyme, the fungi S. lignicola ;Asp. niger and Alt. alternata surpassed in their secretion of tested enzymes, while the fungi Stemphylium sp & U. atrum gave a negative indicater for Phenol oxidase and Cellulase enzyme . The results of sections examination of callus cultures of different date palm cultivars contaminated with fungi showed clear degredation of paranchyma tissues, the degredation intensity was varied among tested cultivars. A complete degredation was evident in Hilllwai and Sayer cultivars in contrast with control callus, also the fungal spores were found in Sayer and Hillwai abundantely inter- and intracellularely, the lowest degree of degredation was found in the callus of Barheei ; Shuwayythi and Um-aldahen due to a restricted degredation in some cells of callus.

A pot experiment was conducted to study the effect of phosphate dissolving fungi (PDF) in increasing the availability of phosphates fertility during growing season of 2002-2003. Soils were inoculated with three isolates of PDE. These isolates were. Aspergillus candidus (F1), Trichoderma harzianum (F2), penicillium digitatum (F3). Inoculated soils were treated with either super phosphate or rock phosphate (as source of phosphorus) at rate of 40 mg P/Kg soil. Zea mays plants were planted in pots and treated with super phosphate and rock phosphate. After 50 days the plants were harvested. Plants were dried in oven at 70Co, then shoot dry weights were recorded. Plants were ground and subsamples were digested. Phosphorus concentration in plant samples were determined then phosphorus uptake was calculated. Available P in soil was also measured. Results showed that inoculation of soils with (PDF) significantly increased available P, dry weights and P uptake as compared to those of non inoculated plants. However, significant differences among used PDF isolates were noticed and being highest for (F1)

Three new complexes of -(2-furyl)-N-Benzyl nitrone with Cu(II), Co(II) and Zn (II) were prepared and characterized by spectral methods (Infrared, Ultraviolate and visible). The conductivity of these complexes in solutions and the effects of these complexes on several microorganisms have been investigated.

Thymus vulgaris is one of important medicinal plants, thus this study was carried out for investigation of essential oils and proteins extracts of seeds of this plant against growth of bacteria urine passes infections. Six types of bacteria were used and which were isolated from patients infected by urine passes infections in hospital of birthhood and children in Nassirya City. It was found that essential oils extract has a growth inhibition against these bacteria especially at concentration (1000 µg/ml),whereas proteins extract showed an inhibition against growth of bacteria generally more than essential oils extracts especially at concentration (1000 µg/ml),where proteins extract showed a highest growth inhibition against Proteus sp. Study also showed that effect of essential oils extract against growth of bacteria, was nearly equal to effect of antibiotics, so effect of proteins extract was found to be more active than essential oils extract ,compared with the effect of antibiotics used . It was found from this study that essential oils and proteins extracts can be used as medicinal substitutions instead of antibiotics but this need further clinical studies in details.

Oil extract from arabian coffee was isolated and identified using several techniques such as thin layer chromatography and infrared spectroscopy. The biological activity of oil extract was examined against two types of gram positive and gram negative bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli) .The result indicates that oil extract from coffee has varying degrees of inhibition against the test organisms.

Because of the henna harvesting process is mainly collected by farmer’s hand which caused some injures and losses in henna production.The investigation was carried out to design and test a manual light and easy to work henna harvester, which consists of handle arm, pipe arm of the implement, covered steel rope two reversible clamp’s conceited with two rubber parts and a hopper made of cloth.The implement is designed to cut and collect the leaves of henna in one process the implement was tested with two types of parts of rubbers (smooth, packer) with four various angles with three different lengths for the implement arm and compared with the hand harvesting method.The results showed that the implement gave a higher productivity than hand harvesting by (15%) and reduced the number of crashed leaves and the damaged leaves, The results showed also that using the smooth rubber part is significantly deferent among the studied treatments than that treatment of packer rubber parts.The angle 45° gave higher productivity than the other angles and lower amount of the other study treatment. The arm length 75 cm of the implement showed highly significant difference of the tested treatment of henna then compared with the result of the other implement lengths.This implement would be improved the productivity of harvesting henna in this area.