A new black seed coat soybean variety, “Socheong” was developed at the Yeongnam Agricultural Research Institute (YARI) in 2006. The goal to breed the black seed coat soybean is to develop the cultivar with high yield, lodging tolerance, resistant to disease such as soybean mosaic virus (SMV), and bacterial pustule and seed size. Socheong was selected from the cross between Milyang 78, which was late maturing, susceptible to lodging and SMV and with large seed size and green cotyledon, and Peking which was tolerant to lodging and with small seed size. The preliminary, advanced and regional yield trials for evaluation and selection of this variety were carried out from 2002 to 2006. It has determinate growth habit, white flower, brown pubescence, brown pod color, black seed coat, green cotyledon, elongated flattened seed shape, oval leaf shape and small seed size (15.7 grams per 100 seeds), and it was 3 days later in maturity than the check cultivar Cheongjakong. Socheong was higher, in the seed quality of sucrose and total sugar contents (6.8 and 8.2%) and isoflavone contents (1,754 ㎍/g) than the check cultivar. Futhermore, it has good characteristics for mechanical harvest, such as lodging tolerance, pod shattering and stem diameter. It also has been identified to have resistance to soybean mosaic virus symptom which was the troublesome soybean diseases. The average yield of Socheong was 2.21 ton per hectare in the regional yield trials carried out in four locations of Korea among seven locations from 2004 to 2006, which was 5 percent lower than the check cultivar Cheongjakong.

A new black seed coat soybean cultivar, “Heugmi” was developed at the Yeongnam Agricultural Research Institute (YARI) in 2006. The goal to breed the black seed coat soybean is to develop the cultivar with high yield, lodging tolerance, resistant to disease such as soybean mosaic virus (SMV), and bacterial pustule and seed size. Heugmi was selected from the cross between Milyang 78, which was late maturing, susceptible to lodging and SMV and with large seed size and green cotyledon, and Milyang 68, which was middle maturing, resistant to lodging and SMV and with middle seed size and yellow cotyledon. The preliminary, advanced and regional yield trials for evaluation and selection of this cultivar were carried out from 2001 to 2006. It has determinate growth habit, purple flower, brown pubescence, black pod color, black seed coat, green cotyledon, spherical seed shape, oval leaf shape and middle seed size (24.8 grams per 100 seeds), and it was 2 days earlier in maturity than the check cultivar Cheongjakong. Heugmi was better in the seed quality of crude protein contents, sucrose and total sugar contents than the check cultivar. It also has been identified to have resistance to SMV which was the troublesome soybean diseases. The average yield of Heugmi was 2.53 ton per hectare in the regional yield trials carried out in seven locations of Korea from 2004 to 2006, which was 8 percent higher than the check cultivar Cheongjakong.

A population ofrecombinant inbred lines derived from a cross between Ilpumbyeo, a blast-susceptibleyopowca cultivarofhigh eating-quality and high yield potential, and GL33, a blast-resistance/apowca weedy rice was used to identifv QTLs affect-ing importan

Pod dehiscence (PD), defined as the opening of pods along both the dorsal and ventral sutures, causes the seed to shatter in the field before harvesting and results in loss of seed yields. However, breeding for resistance to PD is difficult due to the complicated genetic behavior and environmental interaction. The objective of the present research was to analyze the genetic behavior of PD for improving the breeding efficiency of resistance to PD in soybean. PD after oven-drying the sampled pod at 40~circC for 24 hours was the most reliable to predict the degree of PD tested in the field. Keunolkong, a dehiscent parent, was crossed with non-dehiscent parents, Sinpaldalkong and Iksan 10. Using their F1~;and~;F2 seeds, PD was measured after oven drying the pod at 40~circC for 24 hours. The gene conferring PD behaved in different manners depending on the genetic populations. In the Keunolkong~times Sinpaldalkong population, PD seemed to be governed by single major recessive gene and minor genes, while several genes were probably involved in the resistance to pod dehiscence in the Keunolkong~times Iksan 10 population. Heritability for PD estimated in F2 population showed over 90~% in the two populations. High heritability of PD indicated that selection for resistance to PD should be effective in a breeding program. In addition, genetic mapping of quantitative locus (QTL) for PD in both populations may reveal that genes conferring PD are population-specific