This experiment was conducted to examine the influence of four plant growth regulators on growth, photosynthesis parameters and yield of soybean. To increase dry matter accumulation of seeds, some growth regulators were applied to field grown soybean cv. Sinpaldalkong #2 as determinate type and Muhankong as indeterminate type at dense planting condition. Choline caused significant reduction of stem length, but did not increase seed yield. The number of leaf and total leaf area were showed significant increase in all the treatments, but those increased tremendously in Muhankong treated with ethrel. CO2 assimilation and water use efficiency of a single leaf were showed the highest as 17.2 molm-2s-1 and 9.3 μ mmol mol-1 treated with mepiquat in Sinpaldalkong, respectively. The Photosynthetic rate was closely related to stomatal conductance, transpiration and water use efficiency. Mepiquat treatment mainly produced positive effects on the number of pods, percent of pod setting, number of seeds per pod in two cultivars and also increased their seed yield as compared with control.

Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) is implicated in discoloration of white salted noodles and other wheat based foods. PPO activity was evaluated to determine the effect on discoloration of noodle dough sheets prepared from 25 Korean wheat flours during storage and to screen experimental lines with low PPO activity in 52 Korean wheats. PPO activity was assayed with whole-seed and performed with L-dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-DOPA) as substrates. Absorbance by L-DOPA assay of 25 Korean wheats was from 0.285 to 1.368 at 475 nm. PPO activity was significantly related with grain characteristics, including 1000-kernel weight and grain colors. In flour characteristics, PPO activity positively correlated with ash and protein content (r = 0.658, P < 0.001 and r = 0.424, P < 0.05, respectively) and negatively correlated with L* value of flour (r = 0.412, P < 0.05). In the changes of color of noodle dough sheet, L* and b* values consistently decreased and a* value increased during storage. PPO activity negatively correlated with L* value of noodle dough sheet during storage (r = 0.566, P < 0.01 at 2 hr, r = 0.547, P < 0.01 at 24 hr, and r = 0.509, P < 0.01 at 48 hr). But, no significant relationship was found in between PPO activity, a* and b* values during storage. The 52 Korean wheat lines examined in this study were divided into 3 different groups, low (< 0.500), medium (0.501-0.999) and high level (> 1.000), on the basis of the level of PPO activity. Twenty two Korean wheat lines showed low level of PPO activity and Suwon 252, 277 and 280 showed lower PPO activity (< 0.200) than others.

This study was carried out to investigate the chemical 　composition of peanut mutants induced by gamma radiation (Co-60) at 300 ㏉ in seeds of the cultivar Shinnamkwang. The protein contents of twenty-eight peanut mutants ranged from 23.3% to 31.7% and were increased by from 0.5% to 8.4% in fifteen mutants lines from the 26.8% of the original variety, cv. Shinnamkwang. Lipid contents of in mutants ranged from 43.2% to 53.5%, an increase of 0.2% to 5.7% from the 47.8% of the original variety. The range of unsaturated oleic acid in 28 mutants was from 38.9% to 56.9% an increase of from 1.3% to 14.0% from the 50.6% in the original variety. Linoleic acid, the highest unsaturated fatty acid, constituted 32.6% meanly of mutants, it was 17.4% lesser than oleic acid, ranging from 25.9% to 42.0%. Palmitic acid (16:0) contents ranged from 8.6% to 11.1%, and the mutant line-9 had the highest content. The ratio of oleic to linoleic acid was 0.9 to 2.2. A negative coefficient (r=-0.98**) was obtained between oleic and linoleic acid, but for other fatty acids, no significant relation was observed. Similarly, a negative coefficient of r=-0.68**was observed between saturated and unsaturated acids. The sucrose compositions of mutants ranged from 2.6% to 6.2%.

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.