1913년부터 2013년까지 한국에서 육성된 콩 172품종의 생 육 및 수량구성형질의 변이를 평가하고 주성분 분석과 군집 분석을 통하여 품종군을 분류하여 콩 육종의 기초자료로 이용 코자 수행하였다. 생육 및 수량구성형질의 변이계수는 각 형 질에 따라 차이가 있었으며, 엽장폭비, 경장, 분지수, 100립중 및 주당종실중은 높았고, 엽면적, 주경절수, 주당협수 및 주당 립수는 중간정도이었으며, 생육시기에 관련된 개화일수, 성숙 일수 및 생육일수는 낮았다. 콩 품종들의 생육 및 수량구성형 질에 대한 주성분 분석을 한 결과, 주성분의 기여율은 제 1주 성분은 34.02%, 제 2주성분은 18.44%, 제 3주성분은 10.67%, 제 4주성분은 9.96%로, 상위 4주성분까지의 고유값이 1이상 이며, 누적기여율이 73.09%로 제 4주성분까지만 가지고도 한 국 콩 품종의 군집분류가 가능하였다. Average linkage cluster 에 의하여 분류된 군집분류에서 평균 거리를 1.1로 하였을 때 5개 군집으로 분류되었고, I군집은 전체 품종의 69.7%가 속해 있는 가장 큰 군집이었고, 다음으로 II군집이 19.8%가 속하는 큰 군집이었고, 그 다음으로 IV군집이 8.7%가 속하였으며, III 군집과 V군집은 1 ~ 2품종이 속하는 소군집이었다. 각 군집의 품종을 육성년대(1980년 이전, 1980년대, 1990년대, 2000년 이후) 및 용도별(장류 및 두부용, 나물용, 밥밑용, 풋콩 및 올 콩용)로 분류하면 품종의 분포가 차이가 있었다. 육성년대별로 는 1980년 이전과 1980년대에 육성된 품종은 I과 II군집에, 1990년대와 2000년 이후에 육성된 품종은 모든 군집에 넓게 분포하였다. 용도별로는 I군집에는 장류 및 두부용 품종이, II 군집에는 나물용 품종이, IV군집에는 풋콩 및 올콩용 품종이 가장 많이 속하였으며, III과 V군집에 속하는 품종은 나물용 품종이었다.

등숙 시기와 이삭 내 위치에 따른 과피 두께 및 립중의 변화를 조사 이들 간의 상관관계를 분석한 결과는 다음과 같다. 등숙 시기별 과피 두께의 변화는 없는 것으로 확인되었다. 따라서 과피 두께는 수정 후 18일 전에 결정되는 것으로 판단되며 식미가 우수한 찰옥수수 품종 육성을 위한 과피 두께 조사는 풋이삭 수확 적기뿐 만 아니라 이 그 후에 실시하여도 풋이삭 수확 적기와 동일한 관측치를 획득할 수 있을 것이라 판단된다. 립중은 최초 조사기인 수정 후 18일에서부터 계속 증가하다가 35일경 이후 부터는 비슷한 무게를 유지하였으며 등숙 시기별 과피 두께의 변화와는 통계적 상관 관계가 없는 것으로 확인되었다. 따라서 전분 축적과 종자의 성숙을 통한 종자 부피의 증가와 과피 두께 변화는 서로 연관성이 없는 것으로 판단된다. 이삭 내 위치에 따라 하부에서 상부로 갈수록 과피 두께 및 립중의 평균은 감소하는 경향이었으며 이들의 표준편차는 중앙부에서 안정되고 작게 조사되었다. 또한 이삭 내 위치에 따른 과피 두께 및 립중의 평균간에는 두 품종 모두 정의 상관 관계가 있음을 확인하였다. 이로서 찰옥수수 품종 육성과정에서 과피 두께를 위한 시료의 채취는 이삭 중앙부로부터 샘플을 취하는 것이 변이가 적고 평균적인 관측치를 얻을 수 있을 것으로 기대된다.

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. This international convention was initiated to standardize the system efforts and strengthen policy. The establishment of cultivar discrimination system is very important to distinguish varieties between domestic and foreign agricultural products. It is necessary for the protection of breeders’rights. In addition, it will help for more efficient and quality management of plant breeding. This study was conducted to identify and group rice varieties based on agro-morphological characteristics such as plant height, panicle length, number of tillers, culm length, leaf length, leaf width, leaf pigments and flag leaf angles. Using these parameters, statistical analysis classified a total of 243 rice varieties bred in Korea into four groups. Most rice varieties 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. Results of phylogenetic and principal component analysis (PCA) indicated that these varieties formed three largely distinct clusters according to their ecotype and morphological differentiation. This result would be useful in rice varietal identification for the protection of breeders’variety rights.

Among agronomists, there appears to be a confusion in selecting among standard deviation (SD), standard error (SE) and confidence interval (CI) in reporting their results as figures and graphs. If there is a confusion in selection among them, there should also be difficulties in interpreting results published in peer-reviewed journals. This review paper aims to help researchers better suited for reporting their results as well as interpreting others by revisiting the definition of SD, SE and CI and explaining in plain words the concepts behind the formula. A variation among observation obtained from an experiment can be explained by the use of SD, a descriptive statistic. If one wants to draw an attention to a variation observed among plant germplasm collected from different regions or countries, SD can be reported along with the mean so that readers can get an idea how much variation exists in the particular set of germplasm. When the purpose of reporting experiment results is about inferring true mean of the population, it is advised to use SE or CI, both inferential statistics. For example, a certain chemical compound is to be quantified from plant materials, estimated mean with SD does not tell the range where the true mean content of the chemical compound would lie. It merely indicates how variable the measured values were from replications. In this case, it would be better to report the mean with SE or CI. The author recommends the use of CI over SE since CI is a sort of adjusted SE. The adjustment comes from t value that considers not only the probability but also n size.

In U.S.A. maize breeding, exotic germplasm is considered as high-risk and usually introduced by backcrossing specific traits into elite lines. The U.S.A. maize germplasm base is narrow. Only a few open-pollinated varieties are well represented in current programs. Currently, the barrier in using of exotic germplasm in the U.S.A is less formidable than in the 1980s. The major reason is that U.S.A materials are now used in tropical breeding to accelerate earlier maturity and lodging resistance. These exotic materials, developed with U.S.A germplasm, are being introduced back into the U.S.A.Since1994, the ARS-led Germplasm Enhancement of Maize (GEM) project has sought to help broaden the genetic base of America’s corn crop by promising exotic germplasm and crossing it with domestic lines. New hybrids derived from such crosses have provided corn researchers and the producers. These may include improved or alternative native source of resistance to insect pests such as corn rootworms and diseases like northern leaf blight. GEM’s aim is to provide source of useful genetic maize diversity to help the producers to reduce risks from new or evolving insect and disease threats or changes in the environment or respond to new marketing opportunities and demand. During the 2009 growing season, the Ames (Iowa) and Raleigh (North Carolina) locations managed or coordinated evaluations on 17,200 nursery plots as well as 14,000 yield trial plots in Ames and 12,000 in Raleigh. A new “allelicdiversity” study is devoted to exploring and capturing the genetic variation represented by over 300 exotic corn races. Since 2001, GEM has released 221 new corn lines to cooperators for further development into elite commercial new hybrids. GEM has already identified about 50%-tropical, 50%-temperate families tracing primarily to tropical hybrids that are competitive with commercial checks. In North Carolina State University program, they have examined the potential of tropical inbredand hybrids for U.S.A. breeding by crossing temperate-adapted, 100%-tropical lines to U.S.A hybrids. There should be favorably unique alleles or genomic regions in temperate germplasm that can be helpful in tropical maize improvement as well as utilization of tropical lines in temperate areas.

Is backcrossing a good strategy for improving elite lines for quantitative traits in general? Results reported here demonstrate the effectiveness of a backcrossing program for improving quantitatively inherited disease resistance traits, which are strongly influenced by the environment. Through backcross breeding, we were able to improve an important commercial inbred line, FR1064, for ear rot and fumonisin contamination resistance without significantly lowering its yield potential, even with the use of a donor line with poor agronomic potential. Following one generation of selection on advanced backcross-derived lines, gains were observed for the primary trait of interest in advanced inbred generations. Following two generations of selection, we improved potential performance for ear rot resistance and reduced fumonisin accumulation in the 19 selected lines without significantly affecting important agronomic characteristics such as plant height, ear height, or flowering time compared to the recurrent parent, FR1064. The 19 selected lines were also significantly more resistant to ear rot under inoculated conditions than the FR1064 topcross without exhibiting significant reductions in topcross grain yield or other agronomic traits. Several individual lines were identified that were not statistically different from GE440 for ear rot or fumonisin content as inbreds or from the GE440 topcross for ear rot. These lines exhibited topcross yields comparable to the FR1064 topcross, although they were not competitive with commercial check yields. Thus, from a practical standpoint, the backcrossing method was effective at improving quantitative disease resistance in an elite commercial line using an unadapted donor parent. We also genotyped selected lines at DNA markers linked to ear rot and fumonisin resistance quantitative trait loci (QTL) identified in the BC1 generation of this cross to determine which QTL demonstrated allele frequency shifts due to selection.

Use of public tropical lines for U.S. commercial maize (Zea mays L.) breeding is either undocumented or non-existent. A possible exception is the old Cuban line A6, which was still being used in tropical hybrids over 40 years after its development. A major reason for the under-utilization of this valuable germplasm source is the sparse amount of yield-trial data available for most tropical lines. Effective evaluation of tropical, unadapted maize is costly and time-consuming in the U.S. corn-belt, where most temperate maize breeding is done. Thus, temperate maize breeding programs have shown minimal interest in such lines. The narrowness of the temperate maize (Zea mays L.) germplasm base has long been recognized, and there are many available, elite tropical lines that might be used to profitably broaden it. However, there are few comparative yield-trial data by which to choose which line(s) might be most useful. As the investment required for using a tropical line in a temperate breeding program is large, line-choice is critical. Tropical maize (Zea mays L.) represents a valuable genetic resource containing unique alleles not present in elite temperate maize. The strong delay in flowering in response to long daylength photoperiods exhibited by most tropical maize hinders its incorporation into temperate maize breeding programs. The objective of this study was to integrate candidate gene analyses with photoperiod QTL mapping across multiple maize populations. We tested the hypothesis that diverse tropical inbreds carry alleles with similar effects at four key photoperiod response quantitative trait loci (QTL) previously identified in maize. Four tropical maize inbreds were each crossed and backcrossed twice to the temperate recurrent parent B73 to establish four sets of introgression lines. Evaluation of these lines under long day lengths demonstrated that all four QTL have significant effects on flowering time or height in these lines, but the functional allelic effects varied substantially across the tropical donor lines. At the most important photoperiod response QTL on chromosome 10, one tropical line allele even promoted earlier flowering relative to the B73 allele. Significant allelic effect differences among tropical founders were also demonstrated directly in an F2 population derived from the cross of Ki14 and CML254. The chromosome 10 photoperiod response QTL position was validated in a set of heterogeneous inbred families evaluated in field tests and in controlled environments.

Is backcrossing a good strategy for improving elite lines for quantitative traits in general? Results reported here demonstrate the effectiveness of a backcrossing program for improving quantitatively inherited disease resistance traits, which are strongly influenced by the environment. Through backcross breeding, we were able to improve an important commercial inbred line, FR1064, for ear rot and fumonisin contamination resistance without significantly lowering its yield potential, even with the use of a donor line with poor agronomic potential. Following one generation of selection on advanced backcross-derived lines, gains were observed for the primary trait of interest in advanced inbred generations. Following two generations of selection, we improved potential performance for ear rot resistance and reduced fumonisin accumulation in the 19 selected lines without significantly affecting important agronomic characteristics such as plant height, ear height, or flowering time compared to the recurrent parent, FR1064. The 19 selected lines were also significantly more resistant to ear rot under inoculated conditions than the FR1064 topcross without exhibiting significant reductions in topcross grain yield or other agronomic traits. Several individual lines were identified that were not statistically different from GE440 for ear rot or fumonisin content as inbreds or from the GE440 topcross for ear rot. These lines exhibited topcross yields comparable to the FR1064 topcross, although they were not competitive with commercial check yields. Thus, from a practical standpoint, the backcrossing method was effective at improving quantitative disease resistance in an elite commercial line using an unadapted donor parent. We also genotyped selected lines at DNA markers linked to ear rot and fumonisin resistance quantitative trait loci (QTL) identified in the BC1 generation of this cross to determine which QTL demonstrated allele frequency shifts due to selection.