Breeding the whole crop siliage rice cultivar basically requires priority in high biomass and grain yield and tolerance biotic and abiotic stresses. In this context, AA genome wild rices are potential resources to broaden genetic variability for whole crop silage cultivar. We have developed several introgression populations from crosses with three AA genome wild rices, O.glaberrima, O.rufipogon, and O.longistamina. Among these populations, the three BC4F8 near isogenic lines (NILs) derived from a cross of Milyang 23 and O.glaberrima(acc. 101154) could produce the high-yielding lines surpassing Milyang 23 by 20% in grain yield. Introgression lines from crosses with 4 accessions of O.rufipogon with japonica rices, Hwaseongbyeo and Ilpumbyeo had huge agronomic variability and very tall and vigorous lines possessing culm length of 125 ∼ 187cm were selected as promising potential parents to improve biomass of existing cultivars. These selections with high yield potential and biomass will be crossed to create another gene pool to combine high yield and biomass and anther culture breeding could be useful to develop genetically fixed F2 lines with both traits.

The Brown planthopper (BPH) is one of the most serious pests of rice affecting rice yield and quality throughout the country. AA genome wild rice, O.rufipogon is a useful source of insect resistance to BPH. To broaden the BPH resistance in the existing quality japonica cultivars, crossess were made between a highly susceptible quality rice cultivar, Ilpumbyeo, and five accessions (acc.106109, 106286, 106424,105908,80671) of O.rufipogon. Among 126 F8 RIL lines evaluated for Bph resistance at NICS, the highly resistant 22 introgression lines were identified and Ilpumbyeo*2/O.rufipogon (acc.105908) showed different genotype at the marker loci of Bph1, Bph18 and the resistance reaction to BPH in the BC1F2 population fitted to 3:1 segregation mode, indicating the possible new dominant resistance gene might be involved. Polymorphism between Ilpumbyeo and resistant line was low with 36 (27%) SSR markers among 130 markers detected. Currently mapping population of BC2F2 is established and SSR marker analysis will be carried out to find out the resistance loci.

An efficient transformation method for soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] using meristematic tissues of germinating seeds has been established. The embryonic axes were excised from germinating seeds of Korean soybean cultivar, Iksannamulkong and 0.5-2 cm long segment containing meristematic tissues were prepared by cutting hypocotyl region. The explants were inoculated with Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain LBA4404 harboring a binary vector with the bar gene as a selectable marker gene and a β-glucuronidase (GUSINT) reporter gene, and then co-cultured for 7 days on co-cultivation medium (CCM). The meristematic tissues were cultured on shoot induction medium (SIMP6) supplemented with 0.4 mg/l N6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) and 0.1 mg/l indolebutyric acid (IBA) in the presence of 6 mg/l L-phosphinotricin (PPT) for 2 weeks and the surviving explants were transferred to shoot elongation medium (SEMP6). Transformation was confirmed by Southern blot analysis and the transformation efficiencies ranged from 1.48 to 2.07%. The new modified transformation method was successfully implemented for obtaining several transgenic lines with SMV-CP gene. It is expected that this method could efficiently be used for the transformation of recalcitrant soybean cultivars.