Aladdin Hamwieh

Plant breeding aims to create new varieties with enhanced yield and quality. Speed breeding has emerged as a particularly potent strategy, effectively reducing crop generation time and accelerating breeding programs for crop improvement. This...

Weeds pose a major constraint in lentil cultivation, leading to decrease farmers’ revenues by reducing the yield and increasing the management costs. The development of herbicide tolerant cultivars is essential to increase lentil yield. Even though...

It is well known that abiotic stresses, such as extreme temperatures, high salinity, and drought, can have a detrimental impact on crops all over the world. Abiotic stress is caused by distressing environmental conditions that make it hard for plants...

The utilization of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)/Cas-based genome-editing technologies holds significant promise in the realm of crop genome manipulation since it enables precise modifications and expedites the...

Chickpea, renowned for its exceptional nutritional value, stands as a crucial crop, serving as a dietary staple in various parts of the world. However, its productivity faces a significant challenge in the form of drought stress. This challenge...

Rising population, changing climatic conditions, and various biotic and abiotic stresses are contributors to lowering crop yields. This, in turn, has augmented the number of people suffering from malnutrition. The applications of genetic engineering...

In 2020, more than 800 million people suffered from hunger, and this number will continue to rise as the world’s population increases, in addition to heightening the consequences of climate change and the probability of increasing the risk of wars...

Introduction: Chickpea is a legume crop that thrives in regions with semi-arid or temperate climates. Its seeds are an excellent source of proteins, carbohydrates, and minerals, especially high-quality proteins. Chickpea cultivation faces several...

Chickpea is a commonly grown crop, but it is vulnerable to biotic and abiotic stresses. Leaf miner (Liriomyza cicerina) is a pest that can cause severe yield losses of up to 40% if not properly controlled. This study was conducted at ICARDA (Aleppo...

Climate change causes an increase in the intensity of adverse abiotic and biotic stresses that could severely threaten agriculture production and food security including production, access, and prices. The world's population is anticipated to reach 9...

Grass pea is a promising crop with the potential to provide food and fodder, but its genomics has not been adequately explored. Identifying genes for desirable traits, such as drought tolerance and disease resistance, is critical for improving the...

Low-temperature stress (LTS) is among the major abiotic stresses affecting the geographical distribution and productivity of the most important crops. Understanding the genetic basis of photosynthetic variation under cold stress is necessary for...

Genomics and genome editing promise enormous opportunities for crop improvement and elementary research. Precise modification in the specific targeted location of a genome has profited over the unplanned insertional events which are generally...

The basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor is a vital
component in plant biology, with a significant impact on various aspects of
plant growth, cell development, and physiological processes. Grass pea is a
vital agricultural crop that...

Pomegranate has a unique evolutionary history given that different cultivars have eight or nine bivalent chromosomes with possible crossability between the two classes. Therefore, it is important to study chromosome evolution in pomegranate to...

Climate change has significant impacts on agriculture and has the potential to further impact it through changing rainfall patterns, drought, floods, increases in average high temperature, and other climatic factors. The negative effects of these...

Environmental stresses, particularly drought, limit symbiotic nitrogen fixation in legumes, resulting in decreased yielding capacity. Drought is one of the most important constraints limiting yield potential in crops and it is the major abiotic...

Heat stress caused by climatic changes is one of the most significant stresses on livestock in hot and dry areas. It has particularly adverse effects on the ability of the breed to maintain homeothermy. Developing countries are advised to protect and...

Soil salinity affects various crop cultivation but legumes are the most sensitive to salinity. Osmotic stress is the first stage of salinity stress caused by excess salts in the soil on plants which adversely affects the growth instantly. The...

There is a pressing need to improve climate-resilient crops as a consequence of increasingly erratic climatic behavior that threatens global food security. Current scientific efforts aim to elucidate the complex mechanisms behind drought resistance...

The rich genetic diversity existing within exotic, indigenous, and diverse germplasm lays the foundation for the continuous improvement of crop cultivars. The composite collection has been suggested as a gateway to identifying superior germplasm for...

Legume crops provide significant nutrition to humans as a source of protein, omega-3 fatty acids as well as specific macro and micronutrients. Additionally, legumes improve the cropping environment by replenishing the soil nitrogen content. Chickpeas...

Domestication is a dynamic and ongoing process of transforming wild species into cultivated species by selecting desirable agricultural plant features to meet human needs such as taste, yield, storage, and cultivation practices. Human plant...

Chickpea is an important source of plant-based protein and mineral elements such as iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn). The development of superior high-yielding germplasm with high nutritional value becomes central for any breeding program. Chickpea...

Ascochyta blight (AB), caused by the fungal pathogen Ascochyta rabiei, is a devastating foliar disease of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). The genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS)-based approach was deployed for mapping QTLs associated with AB resistance in...

Heat waves are expected to become more frequent and intense, which will impact faba
bean cultivation globally. Conventional breeding methods are effective but take considerable time
to achieve breeding goals, and, therefore, the identification of...

Here we present the approach used to develop the INCREASE “Intelligent Chickpea” Collections, from analysis of the information on the life history and population structure of chickpea germplasm, the availability of genomic and genetic resources, the...

Promoting sustainable agriculture and improving nutrition are the main United Nation’s sustainable
development goals by 2030. New technologies are required to achieve zero hunger, and genome
editing technology is the most promising one. In the last...

Weeds represent one of the major constraints for faba bean crop. The identification of molecular markers associated with key genes imparting tolerance to herbicides can facilitate and fasten the efficient and effective development of herbicide...

Ascochyta blight (Didymella rabiei) is an economically important disease of chickpea in Morocco and other parts of the world. Knowledge about pathogen diversity and their aggressiveness in the Moroccan D. rabiei population can help breeders to...

Soil salinity is significant abiotic stress that severely limits global crop production. Chickpea
(Cicer arietinum L.) is an important grain legume that plays a substantial role in nutritional
food security, especially in the developing world. This...

Global climate change is accelerating the process of soil salinization. Salinity restricts wheat
production worldwide, including in Egypt. Thus, it is recommended to screen for salt-tolerant
genotypes according to salinity tolerance related traits...

Soil salinity is a long-term issue that needs addressing by developing tolerant cultivars. Today,
genome-wide association studies (GWAS) is a preferred tool for quantitative trail loci detection for
different traits. Ten salinity-related attributes...

Salinity stress affects bread wheat as one of the major cereal crops. Phenotyping elite bread wheat
germplasm has high importance for its effective utilization in breeding programs. The objectives of
the present investigation were to screen 169 bread...

Zero hunger and good health could be realized by 2030 through effective conservation, characterization and utilization of germplasm resources1. So far, few chickpea (Cicer arietinum) germplasm accessions have been characterized at the genome sequence...

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important food legume crop grown in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. In India, kabuli chickpea is grown in central India in ~0.5 million ha, predominantly under short winter ( 110 days). Efforts are...

The goal of this research was to develop a new genetic database of simple sequence repetition (SSR) primers for faba and classify them according to their target genes and respective biological processes. Approximately 75,605 and 148,196 previously...

Heat and drought are among the leading environmental stresses which have a major
impact on plant development. In our research, identification and characterization of differentially
expressed genes (DEGs) regulating the response of wheat to drought...

The tolerance of abiotic stress is considered to be one of the key features of crop breeding under climate changes. For any crop improvement program, the selection of suitable gene pools among the germplasms is first needed. Drought and salinity...

GENETIC diversity among plant species is important for improving plant traits. Its estimation is very essential to help selection of genetic resources in breeding programs. Moreover, it is the base for effective and successful crop enhancement and...

Drought stress is one of the major constraints limiting the production and productivity of barley. We tried to identify some indicators related to plant productivity by analyzing some agro-morphological and physiological traits in recombinant inbred...

Orobanche crenata is a parasitic weed that causes considerable yield losses on food legumes in Ethiopia and the Mediterranean region. Understanding the genetic diversity of Orobanche crenata using molecular techniques generate useful information in...

The implementation of novel breeding technologies is expected to contribute substantial improvements in crop productivity. While conventional breeding methods have led to development of more than 200 improved chickpea varieties in the past, still...

Chickpea production is affected by Ascochyta blight disease in many countries and popular cultivars are put out of production due to the evolution of highly aggressive pathogen population. Sexual reproduction is believed to play an important role in...

Fusarium wilt (Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. ciceris) is the most important soil-borne disease of chickpea in Syria. Seventy isolates of the wilt pathogen were isolated from diseased plant samples collected from farmers’ fields and research centers in...

Durum wheat genetic resources from Turkey and Syria are expected to harbor novel alleles for most traits that are of interest to breeders and consumers. However, there have not been sufficient efforts to investigate the genetic structure of this gene...

In this study fourteen microsatellite primer pairs were used to study the genetic diversity of Shishi Date palm in Qatar. A total of 32 date palm (15 Shishi cultivar, 10 Khalas and seven male date palms) were collected from Qatar and 5 Shihi...

Faba bean is an important legume crop because of its high‐yield potential and nutrition‐dense grains. There have been significant achievements in faba bean improvement in the last four decades, which led to the doubling of the global yield average...

Chickpea is a major food legume crop in the mid-highlands of Ethiopia where its yield is negatively impacted by the wilt and root rot (WRR) disease complex. The pathogens associated with WRR complex and their associations with biophysical factors...

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important food and rotation crop in many parts of the
world. Cold (freezing and chilling temperatures) and Ascochyta blight (Didymella rabiei)
are the major constraints in chickpea production. The effects of...

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is considered one of the great socioeconomic resources in the Middle East and the Arab regions. The tree has been and still is at the center of the comprehensive agricultural development. The number of known date...

Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) is an important food legume crop in Syria. Fusarium wilt (Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. lentis – Fol) is a key yield-limiting factor in the country. The genetic diversity of Fol population was studied using 96 isolates...

Salt stress inhibits soybean growth and reduces gain yield. Genetic improvement of salt tolerance is essential for sustainable soybean production in saline areas. In this study, we isolated a gene (Ncl) that could synchronously regulate the transport...

Most of the lentil growing countries face a certain set of abiotic and biotic stresses causing substantial reduction in crop growth, yield, and production. Until-to date, lentil breeders have used conventional plant breeding techniques of selection...

The genetic diversity of Beauveria bassiana was investigated by comparing 40 isolates collected from summer
and overwintering populations of Sunn pest from different areas in Syria and Turkey, using amplified fragment
length polymorphism (AFLP)...

Simple sequence repeats and mating type markers were used to estimate the genetic diversity of 133
Didymella rabiei isolates collected from nine provinces of Syria. Moreover, phenotyping was done on 56
isolates randomly selected from the different...

A global collection of 43 chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) genotypes, resistant and susceptible to Ascochyta
blight caused by Ascochyta rabiei was evaluated for the disease under controlled conditions. In this study three
known pathotypes (P-I, P-II...

A recombinant inbred line (RIL) population, comprising 181 lines derived from ILC588 × ILC3279, was evaluated in 10 environments across three locations with different moisture gradients. A drought resistance score (DRS) and three phenology traits...

New primer pairs of genomic DNA microsatellite
markers were tested to assess the genetic diversity of
eleven date palm genotypes. The results indicated that out
of thirty, only seven primers (23.3%) failed to amplify the
expected PCR fragments, while...

Amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLP) were used to evaluate the genetic diversity between 18 date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) varieties (11 females and 7 males) collected from the center of Iraq. Six primer pairs were applied to detect...

Genetic diversity in 30 date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) cultivars in Iraq representing 24 female and six
male cultivars was investigated using 22 microsatellite [simple sequence repeat (SSR)] primers. The tested SSR
markers showed a high level of...

Chickpea fields were surveyed in nine major chickpeagrowing
provinces of Syria in 2008 and 2009 to determine
the prevalence and severity of Ascochyta blight,
and the distribution of Didymella rabiei mating types
(MATs) in the country. A total of 133...

Date Palm is a major environmental and economic factor in arid climates in many countries around the world. Microsatellite markers have been proven to be very powerful in plant genome analysis because they are locus-specific, codominant, highly...