"Gopumbyeo" is a new japonica rice variety developed and registered by the rice breeding team of National Institute of Crop Science, RDA in 2004, which was derived from a cross between a line SR15225-B-22-1-2 which has good eating-quality and high yield potential and a line SR15140-58-2-2-3 which has lodging and disease resistances. This variety has medium heading date of Aug. 13, medium culm length of 78 cm and tolerance to lodging. It has also relatively semi-erect pubescent leaf blades and slightly tough culm with good canopy architecture. Gopumbyeo has a bit less number of tillers per hill and more spikelets per panicle than Hwaseongbyeo. It shows less sensitivity to premature heading in delayed transplanting of 50-day old seedlings. It showed longer delay of heading date but higher spikelet fertility than Hwaseongbyeo when exposed to cold stress. This variety shows delayed leaf senescence and considerable tolerance to viviparous germination during ripening. It shows moderate resistance to leaf blast, and bacterial blight, but susceptibility to stripe virus and insect pests. The milled rice of Gopumbyeo exhibits translucent, clear non-glutinous endosperm and medium short grains. It shows similar amylose content of 19.6%, and gelatinization temperature, and better palatability of cooked rice compared to Hwaseongbyeo. The milled rice yield of this variety is about 5.48 MT/ha at ordinary culture in local adaptability test for three years. Gopumbyeo would be highly adaptable to the central lowland and mid-southern mountainous areas of Korea.

A new soybean cultivar for soy-paste, “Mansu”, was developed from the cross between ‘Suwon 192’, which was tolerant to disease, late maturing and high yielding, and ‘Suwon 196’ which was early maturing and large seed by soybean breeding team in the Yeongnam Agricultural Research Institute (YARI) to make new variety having large seed and high yielding. A promising line, SS97213-2B-3SSD-39-1-1, was selected and designated as the name of ‘Suwon 236’. It was characterized by regional yield trials (RYT) for three years from 2004 to 2006 and released as the name of “Mansu”. It has a determinate growth habit, purple flower, grey pubescence, pale green seed coat, yellow cotyledon, large spherical seed (26.5 grams per 100 seeds). Maturity date is 4 days later than the check cultivar, Taekwang. The average yield of Mansu was 2.93 ton per hectare in the regional yield trials (RYT) carried out for three years from 2004 to 2006 which was 7 percent higher than that of the check cultivar, Taekwang.

Hopyeongbyeo is an anther culture derived Japonica rice (Oriza sativa L.) cultivar from the cross between Hitomebore and Hwajinbyeo by the rice breeding team of Honam Agricultural Research Institute (HARI), NICS, RDA, in 2003. This cultivar has a about 126 days growth duration from transplanting to harvesting. The short and round grain shape of Hopyeongbyeo is translucent with non-glutinous endosperm. Amylose content of rice grain is about 17.8% and high palatability of cooked rice compared with Nampyeongbyeo. This cultivar shows resistant to bacterial blight pathogenes of K1. The milled rice yield of Hopyeongbyeo is about 5.13MT/ha at ordinary transplanting culture in the local adaptability test. Hopyeongbyeo would be adaptable for the southern plain area of Korea.

Nitrogen (N) fertilization is essential for alleviating nutrient deficiencies of the world’s population by increasing rice production, one of the most important food crops of our time. Here we established an in vivo hydroponics rice seedling culture system to investigate the physio-biochemical and molecular responses of various rice genotypes to low nitrogen application. Yoshida’s nutrient solution (YS) was used to grow rice seedlings, and at three-week-old the seedlings manifested highly stable and reproducible symptoms, such as reduced shoot growth and length. Out of 12 genetically selected or tested genotypes, almost all (11 genotypes) showed varied degrees of growth reduction response to applied nitrogen (4 and 40 ppm N for treatment and control, respectively), but SR19663-B-B-34-3-3-3-1 showed similar growth as the control though its leaf width was smaller than the control. The leaves of a 11 representative low nitrogen-responsive genotype as BG90-2 were sampled for revealing the protein profiles between low and normal (control) nitrogen application by using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DGE) followed by staining of separated proteins with silver. Fifty differentially expressed silver stained protein spots were excised from 2-D gels and 41 proteins identified using high-throughput mass spectrometry (MS) using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight-MS and nano electrospray ionization liquid chromatography tandem MS. These proteins could be assigned as major (energy metabolism, photosynthesis and oxidative stress) and minor functional categories, revealing many novel low N-responsive proteins, including those having energy/photosynthesis, and defense/stress, and iron homeostasis-related functions.

We study on the dynamic interaction with a simulated physical-biological coupled model response to nutrient reduction scenario in Jinhae Bay. According to the low relative errors, high regression coefficients of COD and DIN, and realistic distribution in comparison to the observation, our coupled model could be applicable for assessing the marine ecosystem response to nutrient input reduction in Jinhae Bay. Due to the new construction and expansion of sewage treatment plant from our government, we reduce 50% nutrient inputs near Masan Bay and sewage treatment plant. COD achieves Level Ⅱ in Korea standard of the water quality from the middle of the Masan Bay to all around Jinhae Bay except the inner Masan Bay remaining at Level Ⅲ. When our experiment reduces 50% nutrient inputs near Masan Bay and Dukdong sewage treatment plant simultaneously, COD decreases to about 0.1-1.2 mg/L (128°30’~128°40’ E , 35°05’~35°11’ N). The COD from the middle of the Masan Bay to Jinhae Bay achieves Level Ⅱ.