Carotenoids are major secondary compounds in Citrus determining the color of fruit and nutritional values. Carotenoids are isoprenoic compounds, and function as color pigments in the flower and fruit to attract pollinators and seed-dispersing animal and chromophore for light harvest and photoprotectant during photosynthesis. In the aim of developing new cultivars with high value using molecular breeding technology, we had performed screening of flesh and peel specific genes by differentially expressed gene screening in Citrus unshiu fruits. From the screening, carotenoid isomerase (CRTISO)1, which converts pro-lycopene to all-trans-lycopene, was identified as peel-specifically expressed gene. In this study, the gene encoding the CRTISO1 was cloned, sequenced, and compared to the CRTISOs in other plant species. Comparison of the cds sequence to other plant species revealed 75% and 78% identity with CRTISO1 of Zea maize and CRTISO2 of Arabidopsis thaliana respectively. We also cloned CRTISO2 from C. unshiu which declines the expression while maturation (Kato et al., 2004), and the gene structure was analyzed. This is the first work reporting the full sequence and gene structure of CRTISOs in C. unshiu, and would give important information in understanding the carotenoid synthesis in the Citrus fruit.

The objective of this study was to investigate the variation of Chinese milk vetch(Astragalus sinicus L.; CMV) seed quality after flowering. We tagged individual open flowers of CMV at the day of maximum flowering(11 May) in Seoul, Korea. Seed samples were harvested serially at 15, 20, 25 and 30 days after flowering(DAF). To compare with dried seeds, non-dried seeds were tested immediately after harvest and the remaining seeds were placed at room temperature for 4 weeks. Seed length, 1000 seed weight, moisture content, germination rate(GR), mean germination time(MGT), germination speed(GS), germination performance index(GPI) and physical dormancy rate(PDR) were investigated. Seed length increased to 2.6 mm and 1000 seed weight reached up to 2.2 g until 25 DAF. Seed moisture content dramatically decreased from 20 to 25 DAF. Moisture content of non-dried seed(7.5%) was similar to that of dried seed(5.5%) at 25 DAF. The rate of seed viability reached up to 94% at 25 DAF. In case of dried seed, GR increased up to 39% at 25 DAF whereas GR of non-dried seed varied from 5 to 10%. GS and GPI of dried seed were significantly higher than those of non-dried seed since 25 DAF. PDR of dried seed has decreased since 20 DAF, whereas PDR of non-dried seed has increased. GR, GS and GPI increased as PDR decreased. Our results evidenced that PDR might be one of major factor in variation of seed quality, of which development was completed at 25 DAF.

A new six-rowed naked waxy barley variety, ‘Saehanchal’, was developed by the barley breeding team of the National Institute of Crop Science (NICS), R.D.A. This variety was derived from a cross between ‘SB7803G-BC6-B-B-47-2’ and ‘Suwon262’ in 1989. The fi

Research Institute (HARI), NTCS, RDA, in 2004. This cultivar has a short grain shape and about 123 days growth duration from trans-planting to harvesting under the reclaimed saline area of the south-western and the mid-western coastal plain and Honam plai