A statistical analysis for 3651 genetic resources collected from China (1,542), Japan (1,409), Korea (413), and India (287) was conducted using normal distribution, variability index value (VIV), analysis of variation (ANOVA) and Ducan’s multiple range test (DMRT) based on a data obtained from NIRS analysis. In normal distribution, the average protein content was 8.0%, whereas waxy type amylose and common rice amylose were found to be 8.7% and 22.7%, respectively. The protein contents ranged from 5.4 to 10.6% at the level of 95%. The waxy amylose and common rice amylose ranged from 5.9 to 11.5%, and from 16.9 to 28.5% at 95% confidence level, respectively. The VIV was 0.59 for protein, 0.64 for low amylose, and 0.81 for high amylose contents. The average amylose contents were 18.85% in Japanese, 19.99% in Korean, 20.27% in Chinese, and 25.46% in Indian resources, while the average protein contents were found to be 7.23% in Korean, 7.73% in Japanese, 8.01% in Chinese, and 8.17% in Indian resources. The ANOVA of amylose and protein content showed significant differences at the level of 0.01. The F-test for amylose content was 158.34, and for protein content 53.95 compared to critical value 3.78. The DMRT of amylose and protein content showed significant difference (p<0.01) between resources of different countries. Japanese resources had the lowest level of amylose contents, whereas, the lowest level of protein content was found in Korean resources compared to other origins. Indian resources showed the highest level of amylose and protein contents. It is recommended these results should be helpful to future breeding experiments.

In Korea, common and Tartary buckwheat are cultivated mainly in spring and fall, however the available buckwheat varieties are still very limited. In this study, we have evaluated buckwheat germplasm for agronomic traits and compared flavonoids contents in different cultivation period and collection area. In common buckwheat, the number of days from sowing to flowering was 40 and 31 days and from sowing to maturity took 90 and 69 days in spring and fall cultivation, respectively. The number of nodes and branches were higher in spring cultivation while the hundred seed weight was higher in fall cultivation. The average flavonoids contents in common buckwheat were 0.20 ㎎/g dry weight (DW) and 0.40 ㎎/g DW in spring and fall cultivation, respectively. The highest flavonoids content was detected in Jeonnam accessions with 0.29 ㎎/g DW and 0.43 ㎎/g DW during spring and fall cultivation, respectively. The flavonoids contents were varied from 1.5 to 2.5 times according to the collection area. These results suggest that the agronomic traits and flavonoids contents were vary depending on the cultivation environment and germplasm collection area. Therefore, it is necessary to select the material by considering the characteristics of the germplasm for breeding of new varieties.

Background : The purpose of this study is to select potential genetic resources from safflower germplasm collected from India based on their oil compositions and agronomic characteristics. Methods and Results : The agronomic characteristics were measured during the growing period of the safflower. Total oil contents were recovered by Soxhlet extraction and the fatty acid compositions were analyzed by using gas chromatography. The mean of plant height, leaf length and leaf width were 100.19 ㎝, 20.49 ㎝, and 7.29 ㎝, respectively. The percentage of leaf margin with serration was 95%, and 2% of the total resources didn’t have spines on the involucral bract. K185681 had no spines on the involucral bract and the plant height was the smallest. 73% of the flower of safflower was yellow. 68% of safflower germplasm changed flower color from yellow to red. Total oil contents of 267 safflower accessions showed a significant variability among the entire domain of collections and ranged from 5.81 to 38.91%. Palmitic and stearic acid were ranged from 4.98 to 6.65%, and 1.82 to 2.73%, respectively. Oleic and linoleic acid showed a wide variation which ranged from 10.53 to 22.27%, and 69.46 to 81.26%, respectively. Linolenic acid was ranged from 0.06 to 0.13%. K185639 and K185639 had the highest total oil contents and linoleic acid, respectively. Cluster analysis based on oil composition and agronomic characteristics data divided the germplasm collections into three groups. Group Ⅲ having 114 accessions contained accessions with taller plant height than the other groups. Group Ⅱ having 68 accessions, the main color of flower was white but the other groups were yellow. Oleic acid showed a strong negative correlation (r = -0.9691**) with linoleic acid. Principal component analysis (PCA) based on the oil compositions and agronomic characteristics data revealed that the first two principal components (PC1 and PC2) together explained 36.28% total variation. Conclusion : These results showed that K185681, K185639 and K185639 could be useful to develop breeding and functional food.

Background : To select potential plant resources as natural antioxidants and functional materials, e valuation of N-(p-coumaroyl)serotonin (CS) and N-feruloylserotonin (FS) in 43 safflower accessions collected from South Asia was conducted. Method and Results : CS and FS were analyzed by using Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography (UPLC). Total phenolic content (TPC) was determined by Folin-Ciocalteu method and antioxidant activities were estimated by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazil (DPPH), 2,2'-azino-bis-3- ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid (ABTS) radical scavenging activities, ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and reducing power (RP). The mean CS content was 32.74 ㎎/g dried extract (DE) with a range from 3.44 to 83.30 ㎎/g DE, and the FS content ranged from 1.43 to 34.53 ㎎/g·DE with a mean of 12.69 ㎎/g DE. The mean of TPC of 43 safflower accessions was 55.22 ㎍ GAE/㎎·DE. The average values of antioxidant activities based on DPPH, ABTS, FRAP, and RP assay showed 48.77 ㎍ ASC eq/㎎ DE, 97.62 ㎍ ASC eq/㎎ DE, 70.22 ㎍ ASC eq/㎎ DE, and 50.01 ㎍ ASC eq/㎎ DE, respectively. The 43 safflower accessions were classified into two groups based on the complete linkage cluster analysis using their CS, FS, TPC, DPPH, ABTS, FRAP and RP. Group Ⅱ showed higher CS, FS and antioxidant activity than Group Ⅰ (p < 0.05). K185245 and K185247 were included in Group Ⅱ, K185245 had the highest CS and FS, and K185247 was the highest in TPC, DPPH, and ABTS. CS had significant positive correlation with FS (r = 0.849**). Significantly high correlation coefficients were recorded between TPC and antioxidant assays including DPPH, ABTS, and RP. The first two principal components had accounted for the 80.46 % of the total variance. Conclusion : These results showed that K185245 and K185247 could be used as a source of valuable natural antioxidant materials and could be useful to develop new functional materials.

Background : Carotenoids are pigments that are found in plants, fruits, bacteria, and fungi. β -carotene and canthaxanthin are orange pigments among thousands of carotenoids that possess potent antioxidant activity. The objective of this study was to determine β-carotene and cantaxanthin in 55 Kimchi cabbage germplasm using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) method. Method and Results : 55 Kimchi cabbage accessions were sown in plug trays in the end of August, 2016. All the tissue samples were freeze-dried for 1 week and ground into fine powder and stored at -20℃ until analysis. Crude carotenoids from freeze-dried materials (100 mg) were extracted using 1 ㎖ of 100% (v/v) hexane in 10 minutes by using sonication bath followed by centrifugation. The average β-carotene contents was 1.43 ㎎·㎏-1 and ranged from 0.76 (IT 120045) to 2.25 ㎎·㎏-1 (IT 100378). The average canthaxanthin content in the entire domain of sample was 0.59 ㎎·㎏-1 with a range between 0.36 (IT 32746) and 1.08 ㎎․㎏-1 (IT 100386). Canthaxanthin content was significantly positively correlated with β-carotene (r = 0.65**) and leaf length (r = 0.63**). However, canthaxanthin was negatively correlated with cotyledon color (r = -0.41**). Principal component analysis results of the first two components (PC1 and PC2) explained 44.53% of the point variability. Conclusion : The resources with the highest β-carotene and canthaxanthin content are IT 100378, 100386, 100391, and 110828. This study could be useful to select a potential sources of health beneficial carotenoids (β-carotene and canthaxanthin) in Kimchi cabbage germplasm in nutraceutical formulations and for further applications as a breeding material and other research activities.

Background : Angelica dahurica, Ligusticum sinense and Ledebouriella seseloides are cultivated in small areas in Korea. Domestic cultivation area is around 10 ha, and cultivated varieties have not been developed yet. Therefore, the quality of the product is not uniform, and industrialization is difficult. Lately, studies on the development of varieties have been carried out using domestic collecting germplasm. Methods and Results : Germplasm was collected in Gangwon-do, Chungcheongbuk-do, Gyeongsangbuk-do, Jeollanam-do and Jeju-do and sowed in pots in March 2017. Angelica dahurica was used the collected in Gyeongsangbuk-do, Jeollanam-do, Ligusticum sinense was used the collected in Gangwon-do and Gyeongbuk-do and Ledebouriella seseloides was used the collected Jeju-do. In May of 2017, those were planted and the stem and leaf characteristics were compared and analyzed 1-year. It was bloomed in the second years of 2018, and stem, leaf and flowering characteristics were compared and analyzed. In the first year of growth characteristics, Angelica dahurica showed lower leaf and stem growth in Jeollanam-do collected germplasm. However, there was no statistical significance. Growth characteristics of Ligusticum sinense were higher in Gangwon-do collection than in Gyeongsangbuk-do, but there was no statistical significance. Ledebouriella seseloides was no significant difference between the groups in Jeju-do. In the second years, individual selection were carried out for popullation improvement. The Angelica dahurica showed green and purple stalks and the collected germplasm of Jeollanam-do showed relatively low growth. Ligusticum sinense and Ledebouriella seseloides were no significant differences in growth and color between stem and leaf, stem and stem Conclusion : All three crops were cross pollination, and collected open pollination. Therefore, there were many segregation by germplasm and genetic variation was large. Furthermore, it is considered that statistical significance does not appear. If genetic uniformity is increased through continuous selection and population improvement, it will be possible to cultivate varieties using germplasm. Genetic variation will be a good source of genetic resources.

Background: To obtain useful safflower resources for breeding and research of functional materials, the present study was conducted to determine fatty acid compositions and antioxidant activities of 281 safflower accessions collected from East Asia including South Korea. Methods and Results: Lipid contents and fatty acids compositions were evaluated using soxhlet extraction and gas chromatography, respectively. A antioxidant activities were analyzed using a spectrophotometer. The evaluation range of safflower accessions showed very wide variation. In terms of lipid contents, the China accessions were higher than the collection from other regions, whereas antioxidant activities did not differ among regions. The result of the principal component analysis showed that the first and second principal component cumulatively explained 90.6% of the total variation. In clustering the safflower accessions, the tree showed four major clades. Group II (16 accessions) was high in lipid content, oleic acid and linoleic acid, whereas group III (50 accessions) exhibited higher antioxidant activities than other groups. Conclusions: It was recommended that the China collections be utilized as a useful resource for research on functional oil materials. These results provided valuable information for safflower breeders and researchers of functional food.

A total of 447 accessions consisting of seven Brassica spp.; Brassica carinata (34), B. juncea (199), B. rapa subsp. dichotoma (18), B. rapa. subsp. oleifera (14), B. rapa subsp. rapa (36), B. rapa subsp. trilocularis (56) and B. alba subsp. alba (90) were studied for their morphological characters and fatty acid compositions. There was a wide variation for morphological traits, oil content and fatty acid composition among Brassica species. Seed number/silique and yield/plant were varied from 4.2 (B. alba) to 25.1 (B. rapa subsp. trilocularis) and from 170.7 g (B. rapa subsp. oleifera) to 351.9 g (B. juncea L. Czern.), respectively. Among Brassica species, B. rapa subsp. trilocularis exhibited the highest oil (29.2%), stearic (20.4%) and erucic acid (45.3%) content. B. carinata had the highest content of palmitic (5.2%), oleic (21.2%) and linolenic acid (11.1%). B. rapa subsp. dichotoma and B. rapa subsp. oleifera exhibited the highest content of linoleic (8.1%) and behenic (26.9%) acid, respectively. B. rapa subsp. trilocularis exhibited the highest (45.3%) erucic acid content and significant positive relationship was observed between oleic acid and linoleic acid. This variation of agronomic and fatty acid compositions in Brassica species can be utilized to develop new varieties.

Background: This study was conducted to acquire basic information on the phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of the germplasm of Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer collected from China and Korea, and identify the variations that can be utilized in ginseng breeding programs. Methods and Results: Quantitative parameters were evaluated, and used to compare and analyze on genetic polymorphisms in the germplasm. The genetic characteristics and classifications were compared and analyzed for each character. Stem length followed a normal frequency distribution ranging from 15.5 ㎝ to 40.5 ㎝, with showing approximately 40% having a stem length of 20 - 30 ㎜. Stem diameters ranged from 2.7 ㎜ to 11.3 ㎜. Stem number per plant ranged from 1 to 3; approximately 50% had a single stem, and 45% had two stems. A non-normal frequency distribution was observed for petiole number, with approximately 60% of the germplasm having 3 - 5 petioles. Petiole length exhibited a normal frequency distribution, raging from 4.5 to 10.6. Petiole angle in the germplasm ranged from 28° to 89° and seedstalk length ranged from 5.6 ㎝ to 27.3 ㎝. Conclusions: The genetic polymorphisms identified by complete linkage clustering based on the quantitative characteristics of Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer collected from Korea and China were classified to 6 groups, namely I, II, III, IV, V, and VI with frequencies of 6.7%, 20.0%, 31.7%, 8.3%, 6.7%, and 26.7%, respectively.

Identification of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. raphani and investigation on fusarium wilt development by isolates and inoculation methods were conducted to establish a screening method for fusarium wilt-resistance in radish (Raphanus sativus L.) germplasm. Pathogenicity of F. oxysporum f. sp. raphani isolate, Heonggye-1 and Heonggye-2, to radish plants was confirmed by seedling test. Radish seedlings were inoculated by root-dipping and soil-drenching with or without root-wounding. For Heonggye-1 isolate, mean disease indexes were 4.13 and 3.91 by root-dipping and soil-drenching with root-wounding, respectively, but those were 1.87 and 1.88 without root-wounding. For Heonggye-2 isolate, mean disease indexes were 3.83 to 4.37 regardless of inoculation methods. Two-hundred sixty accessions of radish germplasm collected from 9 countries of Asia and Europe were evaluated for fusarium wilt-resistance by soil-drenching with root-wounding with Heonggye-2 isolate. Fifty-four resistant accessions with higher than 70% of the percentage of resistant seedlings in accession (PR) and lower than 20% of the percentage of susceptible seedlings in accession (PS) was found. Eighteen susceptible accessions with lower than 20% of PR and higher than 50% of PS were selected. These accessions could be used as breeding and research materials after re-evaluation of disease-resistance and characterization of agronomical traits.

Magnesium is important not only for the growth of rice itself, but also as an essential micronutrient component of half of the world population who are supported by rice. Here, we performed genome-wide association study (GWAS) with high-resolution density SNPs to identify natural allelic variation in Mg2+ increase from rice set, which is derived from a total 24,368 rice germplasms. The range of the concentration and distribution of Mg2+ in 295 core accessions of brown rice grain were wide, from 18.17mg/L to 57.11mg/L, with mean 39.71mg/L. In particular, GWAS result shows that the high peak found on chromosomes 3 and 11. The new natural variants identified through haplotyping analysis would be useful to develop new rice varieties with improved storage ability of the valuable mineral through the future molecular breeding.

This study was conducted to characterize the amylose and protein contents of 4,948 rice landrace germplasm using the NIRS model developed in the previous study. The average amylose content of the germplasm was 20.39% and ranged between 3.97 and 37.13%. The amylose contents in the standard rice were 4.99, 18.63 and 20.55% in Sinseonchal, Chucheong and Goami, respectively. The average protein content was 8.17% and ranged from 5.20 to 17.45%. Protein contents in Sinseonchal, Chucheong and Goami were 6.824, 6.869 and 7.839%, respectively. A total of 62% germplasm were distributed between 20.06% and 27.02% in amylose content. Germplasm of 81.60% represented protein content of 6.78-9.75%. The distinguishable ranges of amylose contents according to origin were 16.58-20.06% in Korea, 20.06-23.25% in Japan, 23.25-27.02% in North Korea, and 27.02-37.13% in China. In the protein content, approximately 30% of Chinese resources ranged from 9.75 to 17.45%, whereas less than 10% were detected in other origin accessions. Fifty resources were selected with low and high amylose ranging from 3.97-6.66% and 30.41-37.13%, respectively. Similarly, fifty resources were selected with low and high protein ranging from 5.20-6.09% and 13.21-17.45%, respectively. Landraces with higher protein could be adapted to practical utilization of food sources.

Morphological variation between cultivated and weedy types of Perilla frutescens var. frutescens and P. frutescens var. crispa were studied in 327 germplasm by examining 17 morphological characters. The germplasm between the two varieties were varied for their qualitative and quantitative characters. The seed coat color of cultivated P. frutescens var. frutescens is commonly light brown and brown while deep brown color was observed in the weedy type P. frutescens var. frutescens and P. frutescens var. crispa. The leaf size, cluster length, plant height, flower number per cluster and seed weight in cultivated P. frutescens var. frutescens were significantly (P<0.05) different from weedy type P. frutescens var. frutescens and P. frutescens var. crispa. The cultivated P. frutescens var. frutescens exhibited significantly higher plant height (158.6 ㎝) compared to the weedy P. frutescens var. crispa (133.8 ㎝). Likewise, seed weight was significantly higher in cultivated (1.9 g) than in the weedy type of P. frutescens var. frutescens (1.6 g) and P. frutescens var. crispa (1.4 g). Principal component analysis (PCA) result showed that the first and second principal component cumulatively explained 86.6% of the total variation. The cultivated type P. frutescens var. frutescens and its weedy accessions were not clearly separated with P. frutescens var. crispa by PCA. Hence it requires the use of molecular markers for better understanding of their genetic diversity.

Little millet (Panicum sumatrense) is well known for its salt and drought stress tolerance and high nutritional value, but very limited knowledge of genetic variation and genomic information is available. In this study, a total of 779 primer pairs were designed from the 22,961 EST sequences of switchgrass (Pancium virgatum), of which 48 EST-SSR markers were developed based on the trials of transferability of these primers in little millet. The EST-SSR amplicons showed reproducible single band polymorphism and produced a total of 160 alleles with an average of 3.3 alleles per locus in 37 accessions of little millet. The average values of expected and observed heterozygosities were 0.266 and 0.123, respectively. The polymorphic information content (PIC) values were observed in range of 0.026 to 0.549 with an average of 0.240. The genetic relatedness among the little millet accessions was evaluated by neighbor-joining dendrogram, which grouped all accessions into two distinct groups. The validation thus demonstrated the utility of the switchgrass EST-SSR markers in assessing genomic relationships in little millet. The findings from this study could be useful for designing strategies for the identification of diverse germplasm for conservation and future molecular breeding programs for little millet.

Background : Cucuma longa L., in the family Zingiberaceae, is distributed in tropical and/or sub-tropical regions mainly in India and China. This species is commonly called tumeric, powder is used as medicinal herbs and/or flavor enhancer. It has been cultivated in southern region mainly Jindo. However, it might be possible to extend cultivation region due to rise in average temperature. In order to select superior lines, agronomic characteristics is commonly used. Because this is not the ultimate solution, the DNA marker approach has benefited the modern plant breeding. Therefore an easy approach by using one kind of primer have been developed from random amplification of polymorphic DNA sequences (RAPD) to discriminate effectively between different cultivars of Cucuma species Methods and Results : DNAs were extracted from the harvested roots of Cucuma sp. using DNeasy plant Mini kit (Qiagen, Hilen, Germany). These plants cultivated from GARES (Hamyang) and used for PCR amplification. The relative concentration of the extracted DNA was estimated Nano Drop ND-1000 (NanoDrop Technologies, Wklmington, De, USA) and final DNA concentration was adjusted to 5.5 ng/㎕. In this study 9 primer pairs were tested on 8 Cucuma sp. These primers showed polymorphism in Cucuma sp. The cluster dendogram showed that the similarity coefficients ranged from 0.68 to 0.87, CUR02 turned out to be CUR11, and CUR16 is similar to CUR17. Conclusion : These finding could be used for further research on cultivar development by using molecular breeding techniques and for conservation of the genetic diversity of Cucuma species. These data on polymorphism difference based on RAPD will be give us invaluable breeding information by selection of superior lines.

The objective of this research was to develop Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (NIRS) model for amylose and protein contents analysis of large accessions of rice germplasm. A total of 511 accessions of rice germplasm were obtained from National Agrobiodiversity Center to make calibration equation. The accessions were measured by NIRS for both brown and milled brown rice which was additionally assayed by iodine and Kjeldahl method for amylose and crude protein contents. The range of amylose and protein content in milled brown rice were 6.15-32.25% and 4.72-14.81%, respectively. The correlation coefficient (R 2 ), standard error of calibration (SEC) and slope of brown rice were 0.906, 1.741, 0.995 in amylose and 0.941, 0.276, 1.011 in protein, respectively, whereas R 2 , SEC and slope of milled brown rice values were 0.956, 1.159, 1.001 in amylose and 0.982, 0.164, 1.003 in protein, respectively. Validation results of this NIRS equation showed a high coefficient determination in prediction for amylose (0.962) and protein (0.986), and also low standard error in prediction (SEP) for amylose (2.349) and protein (0.415). These results suggest that NIRS equation model should be practically applied for determination of amylose and crude protein contents in large accessions of rice germplasm.

Lettuce is an important annual leafy vegetable and bitterness is its potent flavor character. Lettuce germplasm differ their phenotypic characters and sesquiterpene lactones (SLs) contents which are important for consumer’s acceptance. This study was carried out to evaluate the phenotypic characters and SLs contents in one hundred lettuce germplasm in Jeonju, Korea. Twenty-three agro-morphological (16 qualitative and 7 quantitative) traits and two SLs (lactucin and lactucopicrin) contents were studied in these germplasm. Germplasm exhibited the variation in qualitative and quantitative characters. Average plant weight was 423.9 g with a range from 116.0 to 905.0 g. Lactucin content was varied from 19.7 (IT 294226) to 194.4 ㎍/g (IT 294298) with an average concentration of 84.7 ㎍/g. Lactucopicrin ranged from 82.5 (IT 300134) to 2228.6 ㎍/g (IT 294210) with an average concentration of 586.3 ㎍/g. Total SLs content was ranged from 120.1 (IT 300134) to 2286.6 (IT 294210) ㎍/g with the average concentration of 671.0 ㎍/g. Significant (p≤0.05) differences were found between crisp head and butter head germplasm for lactucin, lactucopicrin and total SLs content. Crisp head germplasm revealed the highest average lactucin (112.9 ㎍/g), lactucopicrin (734.8 ㎍/g) and total SLs content (847.7 ㎍/g). Crisp head and leafy type germplasm exhibited more total SLs content (847.7 and 744.7 ㎍/g, respectively) than cos (524.9 ㎍/g) and butter head type (519.4 ㎍/g). Principal component analyses of the quantitative traits indicated that the first principal component axis accounted more than 91% of the total variation. This study revealed the ample genetic variation in the agro-morphological traits and SLs contents to support the selection for improved lettuce varieties.