An investigation of the effect of smoking, alcohol, and drug use on male infertility

Background: Infertility in men has increased in recent years. Numerous physical, chemical, biological, and social factors are known to play a role in reducing semen quality, in between, there are high-risk behaviors that affect the quality of semen. In this paper, the effects of three factors: smoking, alcohol consumption, and drugs have been investigated. Methods: This case-control study was performed from June to September 2021 on 500 people, 250 people with normal semen quality and 250 people with defective semen quality. The data collection tool was a questionnaire made by researchers and semen test results. Finally, the collected data were analyzed by descriptive method with SPSS software. For quantitative variables, mean and standard deviation (SD) were used, while frequency and percentage reports were used for qualitative variables. Results: Drug use had a significant relationship with the shape and motility of sperm (B = -0.675, P = 0.005). The chance of natural semen decreases by 0.506 times with an increase of one drug use unit; moreover, the older the age of onset of drug use, the more the semen disorders (B = 0.514, P = 0.002).. Conclusion: Smoking and alcohol consumption were not identified as factors affecting semen quality, but there was a significant relationship between drug use and age of onset and semen disorders

Practice of intercropping and its impact on legume productivity in Egypt

In Egypt, conserving irrigation water and raising crop output are significant concerns. Egypt's climate ranges from semi-arid and arid to desert. The number of summer legumes cultivated on a per-capita basis is declining. Excessively applied nitrogen (N) mineral fertilization and irrigation water are widespread agricultural techniques that harm the quality of the soil and the surrounding environment. It should be possible to increase overall agricultural yield while working with scarce agricultural resources through intercropping. In developing countries, intercropping is the most common farming system for increasing and maintaining agricultural production. As a widely spaced crop, maize provides ample opportunity for the practice of intercropping. Legumes are well-known for their effectiveness as intercropping companions. In light of this information, an investigation into the possibility of intercropping maize with legumes, specifically groundnut and green gram, was carried out. Seeds for groundnuts and green grams were sown between rows of paired row maize. The results demonstrated that the intercropping system had no considerable impact on maize grain and straw yields. However, there was a substantial disparity in total biomass production between the experiments; maize and groundnut (2:3) recorded the highest yield, followed by groundnut (2:2) and green gram (2:3). The land equivalent ratio (LER) unequivocally demonstrated the benefits of intercropping, and the highest LER was achieved by growing maize and groundnut (2:1)