Diversity of crop plants in Nile Delta, Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Tanta University, Egypt.

2 Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Tanta University

Abstract

 
This study aims to answer the following questions: 1- what are the crop diversity
and distribution in Nile Delta and its outskirts?, 2- what are their annual cyclic distribution?
and 3- what are the economic goods and environmental services which they offer?. One hundred field
trips were conducted to many districts in Nile Delta including Greater Cairo and Alexandria during
summer 2012 to spring 2014. One hundred and seventy three crop species belonging to 99 genera and
44 families were recorded. Poaceae was the most represented family, where Cucumis was the most
represented genus. Herbaceous plants were the most represented, followed by trees and shrubs. The
period from March to May was characterized by the highest flowering activity. Most of the species
were propagated by seeds (86.9%), followed by cutting (13.2%). Twenty two groups of crops were
resulted after the application of TWINSPAN and DCA: 6 groups occurred in only one district, 3 in 2
districts, and another 3 in > 10 districts. Group 10 that included 13 districts had the highest
species richness (67.9 species region-'), while G 11 that included 20 districts had the highest
species turnover (3.7). Of the 173 crop species recognized in Nile Delta, 82.1 % had at least one potential or actual economic good. Food plants were the most common crops, while grazing plants were the least. Inaddition, 64.2 % of the crop species had at least one environmental service; cold-tolerant plants were the most represented, while the sand accumulators were the least. This study is the first attempt to evaluate the agro-diversity in Nile Delta and introduces for the scientific community a baseline data for evaluating the agro-biodiversity in Egypt as a whole.

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