This study was carried out to explore possibilities of cultivating horticultural crops in the air-dome greenhouse in comparison to the common iron-frame greenhouse as the standard. The levels of carbon dioxide and atmospheric pressure measured inside the air-dome greenhouse turned out to be higher than those measured inside the iron-frame greenhouse. Contrastingly, light intensity was relatively weaker inside the air-dome greenhouse due to the air-inflated double layers. Plants of melon and cherry tomato were cultivated from May 2 to August 12, 2016, respectively in the two greenhouses. For melon plants, growth in the air-dome greenhouse effectively increased fruit weight as well as trunk circumference compared to iron-frame greenhouse. Moreover, soluble sugar content of melon fruit was significantly higher when cultivated in the air-dome greenhouse. For cherry tomato plants, fruit yield of cherry tomato was significantly increased inside the air-dome greenhouse. Furthermore, it has been found that the air-dome greenhouse was considerably effective in shortening the growing period of melon and cherry tomato plants in comparison to the iron-frame greenhouse.

Rice stem borer, Chilo suppressalis Walker is a significant rice insect pest. A newly hatched larva bores a hole into the rice stem and feeding inside. The damage results in drying and white heads of rice. Climate change will affect pest and its host population dynamics variously. In this study, the degree of asynchrony between emergence of rice stem borer and rice transplanting was examined by their phenology models. Also, correlation was examined between winter mortalities of the rice stem borer and relative humidity categorized by daily minimum temperature in 12 sites throughout the country from 1992 to 2013. The degree of asynchrony appears to be increased in future climate condition. And we found a negative correlation between winter mortality and the relative humidity. Winter mortality will be decreased in the future because of increasing winter minimum temperature and snowfall. We hypothesize that the stem borer may increasingly harbor in alternative hosts such as reed in its first generation and move to rice in the second generation. Currently the simulation study is being conducted to verify this hypothesis.

We screened the drought tolerant maize using seventeen maize genotypes from different sources, nine inbred genotypes from United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) (B73, CML103, CML228, CML277, CML322, CML69, Ki3, Ki11, and NC350), three Southeast Asian genotypes (DK9955, LVN-4, and 333), and five Korean hybrids (Cheongdaok, Gangdaok, Ilmichal, Kwangpyeongok, and Pyeonganok). We evaluated anthesis-silking interval (ASI), leaf senescence (LS), ears per plant (EPP), tassel length (TL), and fresh weight (FW) at silking date. According to ASI and LS examination, CML103 and Kill were drought tolerant genotypes, wheareas Ki3 and 333 were drought susceptible. EPP, TL, and FW differed according to drought resistance. Grain yield was correlated strongly with ASI, but moderately with LS. Difference in ASI between drought-stressed (DS) and well-watered (WW) conditions was less than three days in CML228, CML103, Cheongdaok, NC350, B73, Ki11, CML322, and Kwangpyeongok, whereas that of Ki3, Pyeonganok, and Gangdaok was more than 6.5 days. We concluded that CML228, CML103, Cheongdaok, NC350, B73, Ki11, CML322, and Kwangpyeongok are drought tolerant genotypes, whereas Ki3, Pyeonganok, and Gangdaok are drought susceptible.

Zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) have been used for targeted mutagenesis in eukaryotic cells. Custom-designed ZFNs can induce double-strand breaks (DSBs) at a specific locus. Our custom ZFN dimer was designed 3-finger of left and 4-finger of right with 2 kb size using 2A. A Ti-plasmid vector, pTA7002 containing the target site of SSS4A gene for a ZFN pair, that was shown to be active in yeast, was integrated in the rice genome. This promising technique for genome engineering was induced into 4 exon region of SSS4A gene in rice genome using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. The SSS4A full-length cDNA was 5,070 bp consisting of a 318 bp 5′-untranslated region (UTR), a complete ORF of 2,928 bp encoding a polypeptide of 975 amino acids and a 3′-UTR of 1,824 bp. The vector is based on glucocorticoid receptor inducible gene expression system. Thus, SSS4A::ZFN expression was tightly controlled and the phenotype in low concentrations 10uM of the glucocorticoid hormone dexamethasone (DEX). In plant cells, transient ZFN expression is achieved by direct gene transfer into the target cells. For an alternative, ZFN delivery and production of mutant plants using a tobacco transient expression system for indirect transient delivery of ZFNs into a variety of tissues and cells of plants. ZFN activity was determined by PCR and sequence analysis of the target site. ZFN induced plants were obtained in up to 2% of the PCR products, consisting of deletions ranging between 1and 100 bp and insertions ranging between 1 and 10 bp. Our results describe an alternative to direct gene transfer for ZFN delivery and for the production of mutated rice.