To find an alternative for synthetic pesticides, methanol extracts from 69 plant samples were tested for their insecticidal activity against two spotted mite (Tetranchus urticae Koch). Seven plant extracts including Angelica japonica showed over 80% insecticidal activity at 5000 mg/L. Extract of Prunus armeniaca seed showed high insecticidal activity at 3000 mg/L. As a naturally occurring pesticide, P. armeniaca could be useful as a new botanic insecticide.

Green manure crops play an inportant role in organic farming. Field experiment was conducted at paddy soi1 (fine loamy, mixed, nonacid, mesic family of Aeric Fluvaquentíc Endoquepts) ín 2008/2009 to 2009/2010 at the Natíonallnstítute of Crop Science (NICS), RDA, Suwon, Gyeonggí provínce, Korea. This expe꺼ment was carried out to evaluate the biomass of haíry vetch (Vicia víllosa) and growth of rice (Oryza satíva) by cjífferent seedíng rates. Seeding rates of hairy vetch consisted of 30, 60, and 90 kg ha-' by broadcasting before rice harvesting. The biomass af)d nitrogen production of hairy vetch were not significantly different between 60 kg ha-’ and 90 kg ha-’ of seeding rates. Also, rice yield was not siginicantly differnt between seeding rate 60 kg ha-’ of hairy vetch and conventional pratice for two years. Therefore, we suggested that seeding rate of hairy vetch should be reduced by continuous cropping and incoportion of hairy vetch under rice-based cropping system.

Among the developed bío-degradable polymer fílms as compared wíth transparent fílm(Whíte), black polymer fílm was sígnífícantly more effectíve for controllíng weeds ín red pepper. Also, we found that whíte and black polymer mulchíng had 81.8% and 97.9% of managing weed controllíng effects in rice, respectively. Compared to nonmulched rice paddy with water supply, the non-mulched rice paddy wíthout any water supply has stopped its growth at 41 days after transplantíng, whíle polymer -mulched rice paddy without water supply had about 60% of normally growing rice plants. This shows the polymer treatment has a remarkable effect on water and power saving, solution of herbicidal resistance, avoidance of herbícidal influence to eco-system etc. When the naturally decomposíng polymer was used, a temperature was elevated as high as 4.7 ℃ on maximum and 2.6 ℃ on average. Also the naturally decomposing polymer accelerated rooting by 7 days and lowered a stress level from transplanting. The weed control effect mulched by polymer was remarkable as 98. 7%. The p이ymer now, after 294 days treated on the rice paddy, has been completely decomposed.

The development of humanized culture system of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) hold promise for therapeutic applications. However, conventional culture system contain animal-derived components such as fetal bovine serum and mouse embryonic fibroblasts that bear a risk of transmitting non-human pathogens and incorporation of non-human immunogenic molecules to hESCs. In this study, we developed an efficient xeno-free hESCs culture system using humanized materials, the CELLstartTM, human foreskin feeder and xeno-free medium containing knockOutTM SR XenoFree (XF-medium) without animal-derived material. The hESCs were gradually adapted to the XF-medium; 25:75, 50:50, 75:25 and 100:0. Two karyotypically normal hESC lines, SNUhES4 and H1, were used for the experiments of xeno-free culture condition. The attachment rates at xeno-free culture system were 52.6±12.4%, 67.0±16.6%, 59.0±13.9%, 28.3±2.9% in SNUhES4, 79.3±5.4%, 53.8±20.9%, 69.4 ±6.4%, 59.8±12.6% in H1 and the spontaneous differentiation rates were 42.2±12.7%, 31.4±2.9%, 40.8±14.5%, 55.2±35.5% in SNUhES4, 35.6±8.5%, 36.4±13.5%, 48.4±7.8%, 80.1±6.0% in H1 in the first four passage. Although the attachment rates were low and the spontaneous differentiation rates were high compared to that of conventional system in the early passages using this humanized culture condition, hESCs in this culture condition were found to maintain hESC characterizations; morphology, expression of cell surface markers and stable karyotype. Our results indicate that simplified compositions of humanized culture system can be applicable to the further optimization for a xeno-free culture of hESCs without the loss of pluripotency and contamination from xenogenic sources.