Due to climate change and the expansion of cultivation areas through the use of reclaimed land, changes in the selection of Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum L.) varieties are anticipated. This study was conducted to compare the growth characteristics before overwintering, productivity, and feed value of eight Italian ryegrass varieties with different maturing stages under the same cultivation conditions. The variety ‘Lm4ho’, a medium-maturing type, showed superior growth characteristics before overwintering, including plant height, leaf length, and leaf width. The heading date was advanced in all varieties, with a greater degree of advancement observed in varieties with earlier heading dates. When harvested at the heading stage of the early-maturing types, the dry matter yield of the medium-maturing types was not significantly different from that of the early-maturing types. However, when harvested at the heading stage of the medium-maturing types, the dry matter yield was higher than that of the early-maturing types. Specifically, ‘Lm4ho’ produced 2,518 kg/ha more than ‘Kowinearly’. The late-maturing variety IR901 and the medium-maturing varieties ‘Lm4ho’ and ‘Kowinmaster’ showed statistically superior dry matter yields. In terms of forage value, including crude protein (CP), total digestible nutrients (TDN), and relative feed value (RFV), the medium- and late-maturing types outperformed the early-maturing types. Notably, ‘Lm4ho’, ‘IR 901’, and ‘Hwasan 104’ were evaluated as suitable varieties for high-quality forage production. These results suggest that medium-maturing varieties may be suitable for double cropping in the central regions due to climate change. We propose that future breeding of Italian ryegrass should expand from focusing on cold tolerance and early-maturing varieties to include mediumand late-maturing varieties that consider both productivity and quality.

The present study was conducted to analyze agronomic characteristics of 8 ecotypes of Arundinella hirta (A. hirta) and the correlation among them. Changes in phenotypic characteristics of 8 ecotypes were measured at equal intervals of time from May to September. Among ecotypes, Jangsoo-1 has the highest plant height (172.33 cm), number of leaves (9.00) and leaf length (55 cm) while the ecotype Youngduk has the highest leaf width (1.57 cm), fresh mass (26.63 g), dry mass (7.06 g), number of spikelets per spike (53.33), amount of seeds per spike (0.74 g) and amount of seeds per 10 spikes (7.23 g). The ecotype Jinju-1 has the shortest plant height (119 cm) and leaf number (6.33), while Okgye-2 has shortest leaf length (30.67 cm), leaf width (0.93 cm), fresh mass (12.60 g), dry mass (3.30 g), spike length (30.33 cm), spikelet per spike (39.67), amount of seeds per spike (0.61 g) and amount of seeds per 10 spikes (6.00 g). Correlation coefficients were estimated among the studied agronomic characteristics which showed positive and significant association with each other. In the present study, the agronomic data collected would be useful to understand the potential of A. hirta as a forage resource and helpful in selecting the high-yielding genetic resource for future forage improvement.

The increase in temperature due to climate warming is predicted to affect crop yields in the future. Until now, various types of OTC (open top chamber) that simulate the future climate condition have been developed and used to study the effect of temperature increase due to global warming on maize growth. However, in most OTCs, high equipment and maintenance costs were required to artificially increase the temperature. This study was carried to develop a cost-effective and simple OTC suitable for climate warming experiments for forage maize. Three octagonal OTCs with a height of 3.5 m × a diameter of 4.08 m and a partially covered top were constructed. The lower part of OTC covered film was opened at a height of 26 cm (OTC-26), 12 cm (OTC-12) from the ground surface, or not opened (0 cm, OTC-0). Mean air temperatures during the daytime on a sunny day in OTC-0, OTC-12 and OTC-26 increased to 3.23℃, 1.33℃, and 0.89℃, respectively, compared to the ambient control plot. For a pilot test, forage maize, ‘Gwangpyeongok’ was grown at OTCs and ambient control plots. As a result, in the late maize vegetative growth phase (July 30), the plant height was increased more than 45% higher than the ambient control plot in all OTC plots, and the stem diameter also increased in all OTC plots. These results indicate that it is possible to set the temperature inside the OTC by adjusting the opening height of the lower end of the OTC, and it can be applied to study the response of forage maize to elevated temperature. An OTC, with its advantages of energy free, low maintenance cost, and simple temperature setting, will be helpful in studying maize growth responsiveness to climate warming in the future.

The effects of reaction temperature and precursor concentration on the microstructure and magnetic properties of nanoparticles synthesized as final products of iron acetylacetonate in chemical vapor condensation (CVC) were investigated. Pure phase was obtained at temperature above and crystallite size of nanoparticles decreased with lowering precursor concentration. Also, the coercivity decreases with decreasing crystallite size of nanopowder. The lowest coercivity was 7.8 Oe, which was obtained from the nanopowder sample synthesized at precursor concentration of 0.3M. Then, the crystallite size of nanoparticles was 8.8 nm.

Ultrasonic-milling of metal oxide nanopowders for the preparation of tungsten heavy alloys was investigated. Milling time was selected as a process variable. XRD results of metal oxide nanopowders ultrasonic-milled for 50 and 100h showed that mean crystallite size reduced with increasing milling time and there was no evidence of contamination or change of composition by impurities. It was found that nanocomposite powders reduced at in atmosphere had a composition of 93.1W-4.9Ni-2.0Fe by EDX analysis. Hardness of sintered samples of 50 and 100h was 390 and 463 Hv, respectively, which corresponds to the hardness of commercial products.

We isolated low temperature inducible genes using suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) method and were able to obtain to clone MLT7 gene encoding peroxiredoxin and aminotransferase. The full-length cDNA of MLT7 is 1,049 bp with an open reading frame (ORF) consisting of 261 amino acid (aa). Genomic southern blot confirmed that mungbean genome has two copies of MLT7 gene. Northern blot analysis was also carried out for the gene expression during ABA, NaCl, drought, wounding and H2O2 stresses. The expression of MLT7 gene significantly decreased by ABA, NaCl and drought stress, but wounding and H2O2 stress significantly induced MLT7 gene expression. Especially, H2O2 strongly induced the MLT7 gene expression. The expression of MLT7 gene during low temperature stress started to increase in 3 h after treatment, and than slightly decreased and again increased at 24 h. Using GFP fusion vector, GFP-MLT7 was targeted both to mitochondria and chloroplast. However, it was mostly targeted to mitochondria and partially targeted to chloroplast. For the functional analysis of MLT7, MLT7 recombinant protein was heterologously expressed in E. coli. The MLT7 recombinant cells showed enhanced antioxidant activity compared to that of vector control cells.

We isolated low temperature inducible genes using suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) method and were able to obtain to cloneMLT107 gene encoding peroxiredoxin and aminotransferase. The full-length cDNA of MLT107 is 1,049 bp with an open reading frame (ORF) consisting of 261 amino acid (aa). Genomic southern blot confirmed that mungbean genome has two copies of MLT107 gene. Northern blot analysis was also carried out for the gene expression during ABA, NaCl, drought, wounding and H2O2 stresses. The expression of MLT107 gene significantly decreased by ABA, NaCl and drought stress, but wounding and H2O2 stress significantly induced MLT107 gene expression. Especially, H2O2 strongly induced the MLT107 gene expression. The expression of MLT107gene during low temperature stress started to increase in 3 h after treatment, and than slightly decreased and again increased at 24 h. Using GFP fusion vector, smGFP-MLT107 was targeted both to mitochondria and chloroplast. However, it was mostly targeted to mitochondria and partially targeted to chloroplast. For the functional analysis of MLT107, MLT107 recombinant protein was heterologously expressed in E.coli. The MLT107 recombinant cells showed enhanced antioxidant activity compared to that of vector control cells.

This study was carried out to obtain informations on the variations of oil content and fatty acid composition among 90 Korean perilla collections. Average oil content of 90 perilla collections was 44.2% with a range from 29.7% to 61.9%. Perilla collections with late-maturing, super-large seed and gray seed coat showed higher oil content than other types in general. Average saturated fatty acid content in perilla oil was 9.0% with a range from 8.2% to 10.7%, while average unsaturated fatty acid content varied from 89.3% to 91.8% with a mean of 91.0%. Contents of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids were not related to maturity. There were no differences in the contents of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids according to maturity. Linoleic acid and linolenic acid contents were the highest in the super large-sized group(15.5%) and in the large-sized seed group(61.4%), respectively, while contents of fatty acids among the perilla collections were variable with different seed coat colors. Most of the traits studied were not significantly correlated with oil content, but linoleic acid(Ω-6) content was negatively correlated (r=-0.217＊) with linolenic acid(Ω-3) content.