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.

A new barley (Hordeum Vulgare L.) cultivar ‘Wooho’ was developed by Honam National Agricultural Research Institute (HARI) in 2005. It had good forage characteristics (smooth awn) and showed high forage production in the 5 locations of paddy field. ‘Wooho’ was developed from the cross between SB87125〔Oweol//(SB77011)/SB79124 (Bengei//Hagane/ Bunong) ///Y7213-SD607-CM67-Milyang12〕and SB83024 (1012.2-IB65/Ol//Samheung/Suwon18-Gang) made in 1994. Subsequent selections were made throuhg bulked and pedigree selection methods. SB94104-B-B-B-B-79 was selected for smooth awn and agronomic performance in 2001 and placed in preliminary yield trial. In 2003, it was designated as ‘Suwon 396’ and performed regional yield trials. The average forage yield of ‘Wooho’ were 11.0 MT/ha and 10.9 MT/ha at May 20 and drought stage, respectively. The shattering rate of ‘Wooho’ was lower than that of ‘Ol’. It showed superior forage quality to the check variety when harvest early drought stage. ‘Wooho’ would be recommended as a cultivar of barley for whole crop forage with smooth awn.

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.