The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) promotes an effective system of plant variety protection and encourages the development of new varieties of plants. International convention was initiated to standardized the system efforts and strengthen the policy. This study was conducted to establish a database for rice identification using morphological characters which include number of tillers and panicle per plant, spikelets per panicle, yield, plant maturity, height, leaf pigments, flag leaf angles, and rice bran. The whole rice population was grouped into three based on leaf angles, majority members of which retained the flag leaf angle-character until maturity stage. Most rice accessions did not exhibit anthocyanin pigments on the leaves particularly on the first leaf, leaf blade, leaf sheath and auricle, except for varieties classified as black rice. In the case of grain, many accessions produced secondary branching, and showed no awn. For agronomic traits, productive tiller and panicle per plant were higher in early flowering varieties, while spikelets per panicle and ripened grain were higher in late flowering varieties, and yield was higher in medium flowering varieties. All data were then pooled for cluster analysis which revealed three major independent clusters and four minor clusters.

Cysteine protease (CP) is one of the well-studied proteolytic enzymes in plants. This class of protease has been implicated in various physiological aspects of developmental stages in plants including seed germination, senescence, and disease immunity. A handful of studies assigned plants cysteine protease in different molecular battlefield under a few selected pathosystems, and initially extricated complex molecular mechanism of resistance. However, its potential use as an agent of resistance to diseases in rice has never been explored. This study demonstrates the function of CP specifically in rice - Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) pathosystem. The CP -encoding full-length cDNA was cloned from Brassica rapa and transformed into japonica rice cv. ‘Gopumbyeo’. The gene was overexpressed under the control of CaMV35S promoter in pFLC vector. Blast analysis of the conserved domain of the gene confirmed its affinity to Peptidase_CIA family. RT-PCR analysis showed that the gene was constitutively expressed in all tissues tested. Regulation of rice resistance through cysteine protease activity is evident in overexpression lines which exhibited an enhanced resistance to four Korean Xoo isolates. Further analyses will be carried out to uncover the specific role of CP in rice-Xoo interaction.

To investigate the flora of wetland at Mt. Il-Kwang, the helophyte of the mountain was examined. The flora observed was classified into 2 phyla, 15 families, 27 genera, and 34 species. Representative species at the wetland were Drosera rotundifolia, Utricularia racemosa, Utricularia bifida, Eriocaulon miquelianum, and Eleocharis attenuata var. laeviseta. In the lower part of the wetland, water was abundant and soil surface layer was thin, and Eriocaulon miquelianum-Carex canescens-Drosera rotundifolia community were developed. On the other hand, in the upper part of the wetland, water was not abundant and soil surface layer was thick, and Agrostis clavata-Phragmites japonica community were developed. Utricularia bifida and Utricularia yakusimensis were growing abundantly at this wetland, but Utricularia racemosa was few in number and narrow in the distribution area. Eriocaulon miquelianum, a Korean endemic plant, was observed, and Habenaria linearifolia, Spiranthes amoena, and Epipactis thunbergii, the CITES plant, were observed at this wetland. Insectivorous plant such as Drosera rotundifolia, Utricularia racemosa, Utricularia bifida, and Utricularia yakusimensis were also observed.