Bitter melon (Momordica charantia L.) is a tropical and subtropical vine of the family Cucurbitaceae, widely grown for edible fruit, which is among the most bitter of all vegetables. Bitter melon contains an array of biologically active plant chemicals including triterpenes, proteins, and steroids. The fruit is useful in gout, rheumatism and subacute cases of the spleen and liver diseases. It is supposed to purify blood and dissipate melancholia. It has also been shown to have hypoglycaemic properties (anti-diabetic) in animal as well as human studies. Raw materials of used in pharmaceuticals, health food, cosmetics, food, perfumery and other industries. However, bitter melon is not popular in Korea. For research, development and commercialization of bitter melon in Korea, we collected 13 varieties of bitter melon from domestic andabroad. We study biological and chemical characteristics of bitter melon. In general frui tsize and weight of Philippines and Japanese varieties was larger than that of Chinese and Korean. We are studying chemical analysis of useful compound (diosgenin and GABA) from bitter melon.

A new oat (Avena sativa L.) cultivar 'Darkhorse' was developed by Honam Agricultural Research Institute (HARI) m2005. It was released because ofits earlmess, high forage yield potential and adaptability for late summer sowing. It was devel-oped from the a

A new oat (Avena sativa L.) cultivar, "Highspeed" was developed by Honam Agricultural Research Institute (HARI) in2005. It was released because of its earliness, high forage yield potential, and good adaptability for late summer sowing. "High-speed" was s

In order to develop molecular markers related to stay green phenotype, AFLP analysis was conducted using near-isogenic lines for either stay green or non stay green trait. Both lines have characteristics of multi-ear and tillers (MET). Two out of 64 primer combinations of selective amplification identified three reproducible polymorphic fragments in MET corn with stay green. Both of E+AGC/M+CAC and E+AAG/M+CAA primer combinations produced two and one specific polymorphic fragments linked to stay green trait, respectively. For the conversion of AFLPs to sequence tag sites (STSs), primers were designed form both end sequences of each two polymorphic fragments. One fragment, which was amplified with E+AAG/M+CAA primer combinations, possessed 298 bp long and showed a 91~% homology with maize retrotransposon Cinful-l. One out of two polymorphic fragments produced with E+AGC/M+CAC primer combination had 236 bp long and matched a 96~% homology with an intron region of 22kDa alpha zein gene cluster in Zea mays. One out of two PCR fragments amplified with MET2 primer set in the stay green MET was not produced in the non-stay green MET. The developed AFLP and STS marker could be used as an efficient tool for selection of the stay green trait in the MET inbred.

Improving grain yield and quality of japonica rice continues to be a major breeding objective in Korea. In this study we evaluated genetic divergence among four japonica rice cultivars and assessed the relationship between genetic distance and hybrid perf

To investigate the genetic mode of some panicle traits, interrelationships between panicle traits and ripened grain ratio, and the critical limit of panicle trait for high ripened grain ratio, four different panicle types of rice cultivars (Milyang 161, i