The objective of this study were to identify QTLs for agronomic traits using a set of introgression lines carrying wild rice (Oryza rufipogon) segment in cultivated rice (ssp. japonica cv. Hwaseongbyeo). Ninety-six ILs were evaluated for seven agronomic traits, amylose and protein contents. The proportion of the recurrent genome in ILs ranged from 87.8 to 100%, with an average of 96.7%. The mean number of homozygous and heterozygous donor segments were 2 (ranging 0-7) and 1.7 (ranging 0-6), respectively, and the majority of these segments had size less than 10 cM. A total of 22 quantitative trait loci were identified for 9 traits and each QTL explained 7.2% to 56.6% of the phenotypic variance. Some QTLs were clustered in a few chromosomal regions. A first cluster was located near RM527 on chromosome 6 with QTLs for culm length, panicle length, days to heading, 1000-grain weight and protein content. Three ILs with high spikelets per panicle compared to the recurrent parent were selected to detect and fine map the wild segments responsible for this variation. The results will be discussed.

For QTL analysis of agronomic traits based on cultivation of low and high altitude locations, BC1 F5 181 lines were developed from a cross of Tongil type Gayabyeo and japonica Chhomrong originated from Nepal. Plant materials were grown in both of low altitude area of Milyang, Korea and high altitude area of Khumaltar, Nepal. In QTLs analysis, a total of 42 QTLs were detected in days to flowering, culm length, panicle length, number of panicles/hill, panicle exertion, and spikelet ripening ratio. Although many of the QTLs were coincided between the two locations of Korea and Nepal, several QTLs were revealed as location specific in high altitude area of Khumaltar. Especially, the regions harboring marker RM489-RM14281 on chromo- some 3, RM5642-RM19049 on chromosome 5, and RM2854-RM6696 on chromosome 12 where QTLs were clustered and coincided between the two locations are considered as positive target regions for environmental independent traits. Furthermore, high rate of location specific QTLs such as panicle exertion and spikelet ripening ratio could be considered carefully for understanding the mechanism of cold tolerance based on cultivation of different altitude location.

평야지 조기재배에 적합한 신품종 육성을 위해 풍미와 고시히까리가 교배된 재조합 집단내에서 주요 농업적 형질을 비교하여 완전미율에 미치는 주요 요인을 확인하고자 수행한 결과는 다음과 같다. 재조합 집단의 주요 농업적 형질의 변이는 분석한 결과 간장은 51.0~97.0 cm, 아밀로스 함량은 14.0~20.1%, 단백질 함량은 5.2~7.4% 및 쌀가루 호화 특성인 최고점도는 -227.2~309.8 RVU이며, 완전미율은 67.7~96.7% 등으로 분포하였다. 주요 형질과 상관분석을 수행한 결과 완전미율과 간장은 정의상관(0.443)을 보였으며, 단백질함량과는 부의상관(-0.458)을 나타내었다. 평야지 조기재배에 적합한 고품질 품종개발을 위해서는 포장에서는 간장, 단백질 함량 및 완전미율 등 주요 농업적 특성을 고려하여 선발할 필요가 있다.

The objectives of this study were to identify QTLs for agronomic traits using introgression lines from a cross between a japonica weedy rice and a Tongil-type rice. A total of 75 introgression lines developed in the Tongil-type rice were characterized. A total of 368 introgressed segments including 285 homozygous and 83 heterozygous loci were detected on 12 chromosomes based on the genotypes of 136 SSR markers. Each of 75 introgression lines contained 0-9 homozygous and 0-8 heterozygous introgressed segments with an average of 5.8 segments per line. A total of 31 quantitative and 2 qualitative loci were identified for 14 agronomic traits and each QTL explained 4.1% to 76.6% of the phenotypic variance. Some QTLs were clustered in a few chromosomal regions. A first cluster was located near RM315 and RM472 on chromosome 1 with QTLs for 1,000 grain weight, culm length, grain width and thickness. Another cluster was detected with four QTLs for 1,000 grain weight, grain length, grain width and grain length/width ratio near the SSR marker RM249 on chromosome 5. Among the 31 QTLs, 9 (28.1%) Hapcheonaengmi3 alleles were beneficial in the Milyang23 background. ILs would be useful to confirm QTLs putatively detected in a primary mapping population for complex traits and serve as a starting point for map-based cloning of the QTLs. Additional backcrosses are being made to purify nearly isogenic lines (NILs) harboring a few favorable Hapcheonaengmi3 alleles in Milyang23 background.

Biomass crops have potential as a source of renewable CO2-neutral energy to ease concerns about fossil fuel consumption. Therefore, there is an increasing interest in high biomass crops such as switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.). Switchgrass is a perennial C4 grass that requires low cost for biomass production. In the previous study, we evaluated forty switchgrass germplasms for biomass yield and classified the germplasms into the high-, medium-, and low-yielding groups. In this experiment, we evaluated response of switchgrass accessions to fertilizer applications. A recommended level of fertilizer was applied to the field and responses of morphological and agronomic characteristics affecting biomass productivity (panicle length, clum length, leaf width, thickness, tiller numbers, effective tiller numbers, seed weight, plant weight) were analyzed. Also, the composition of organic compounds (crude protein, crude fat, ash, glucose, xylose) and mineral elements were analyzed for the two selected lines from each biomass yield group by the levels of exchangeable cations in the soil. Positive correlations were found between biomass yield and content of crude protein, crude fat, ash, T-N, glucose, and xylose. However, no relations were found between biomass yield and mineral elements such as Na, P, K, Fe and Zn. Biomass yield was increased by 1.9-fold by the fertilizer application and the traits most significantly affected by fertilizer application were effective tiller number and plant weight. The accessions that showed less than 10% increase in biomass productivity by the fertilizer application were accession 26, 29, 13, and 18. This study was supported by Technology Development Program for New Bioenergy (subject number-20070301030016), Rural Development Adiministration, Republic of Korea.

Somaclones regenerated from seed-derived callus culture of a rice cultivar, 'Ilpum', were evaluated for the agronomic and morphological characteristics. A total of 424 plants regenerated and the seeds collected from 297 lines were used for further analysis on morphological and agronomic traits. The results indicated that 21.5% (64 lines) of progenies showed significant differences from the donor cultivar 'Ilpum'. Somaclonal variations were induced leaf character, plant height, grain characters, heading date, and sterility. Among the variants, 8% (24 lines) of sterility, 1.4% (4 lines) of dwarf/semi dwarf, 1.7% (5 lines) of opaque, and 1.3% (4 lines) of leaf-rolling phenotypes were observed. The highest frequency of somaclonal variation was observed on heading date which occupied 9.1% (27 lines) of the entire lines included 6.4% (19 lines) of early heading and 2.7% (8 lines) of late heading. These results suggest that the somaclonal variation will be one of the promising genetic resources due to its wide variation and comparatively high frequency of mutation.

Barley landraces harbor significantly higher genetic diversity than modern cultivars. Diversity of agronomic and morphological traits was investigated for 386 accessions of Korean landrace barley which were back-introduced from Okayama University, Japan. Among the accessions, 279 were covered barley and 89 naked barley. Seeds were sowed in late October and major growth characteristics were investigated at maturity and after harvest. The traits evaluated exhibited higher variation with respect to the CV, ranging from 47 to 60. The trait exhibiting the greatest variation was flag leaf width (FLW, CV=60 with 2.8x difference between minimum 0.6 and maximum 1.7). Those traits exhibiting least variation were heading date (HD, CV=47.2 with 31 days difference between the earliest and the latest) and seed number per spike (SNS, CV= 48.9 with 2.8x difference between minimum 36 and maximum 72). The other eight traits [maturity date (MD, CV= 53.7), culm length (CL, CV= 55.4), flag leaf length (FLL, CV= 51.6), spike length (SL, CV= 54.3), awn length (AL, CV= 54.4), whole spike length (WSL, CV= 52.9), spike density (SD, CV= 52.7), seed rows of spike (SRS, CV= 50.1)] were intermediate in their level of variation with respect to the CV. The first, second and third principal components explained about 30.3%, 17.0% and 13.4% of the total variation of the traits, respectively. The traits which contributed more positively to PC1 were SL, SD, WSL and AL. The traits which contributed more positively to PC2 were SRS and SNS, and those contributed more positively to PC3 were FLL and FLW. The Korean landrace barley accessions contain significantly diverse variation to explore for the improvement of agronomic and morphological traits of current elite cultivars. This work was supported by a grant from Regional Subgenebank Support Program of Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea.

To investigate the mutagenecity of sodium azide (SA) and to select mutants having various agronomic characteristics in rice (Oryza sativa L. ssp. japonica), dry seeds of rice variety 'Suweon 472' were treated with 0, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, and 4.0 mM SA solutions prepared in 0.1 M phosphate buffer (pH 3.0). Germination rate, seedling height and sterility were investigated in M1 generation and chlorophyll mutations were observed in M3 generation. Germination rate and seedling height decreased as the increase of SA concentration in M1 generation, the maximum seed sterility (40.8%) was found at 4.0 mM SA concentration. Chlorophyll mutants were occurred in M3 generation and the frequency calculated on a line basis was 13.5% at the same treatment. Many kinds of mutations for morphological and agronomic characters were observed and mutations with short culm and glabrous leaf were frequently found in M3 generation. Interestingly, five mutant lines resistant to blast or bacterial blight (BB) were selected and evaluated with several isolates in M3 generation although Suweon 472 has been known to be susceptible to blast and BB. These mutants showed all resistance to seven isolates of blast and a total of 76 lines among 2,567 lines evaluated showed resistant to race K1 of bacterial blight. Two mutant lines (440172 and 41272) showed different reaction to BB isolates from the other resistant mutants. A few kinds of endosperm mutants were also identified and most of them were waxy mutants.

This study was conducted to evaluate the growth characters and yield components of 18 collected sesame cultivars to get basic information on the variation for the sesame breeding using principal component analysis. All characters except days to flowering, days to maturity and 1,000 seed weight showed significantly different. Seed weight per 10 are showed higher coefficient of variance. Capsule bearing stem length and liter weight showed positive correlation with seed yield per 10 are. The principal components analysis grouped the estimated sesame cultivars into four main components which accounted for 83.7% of the total variation at the eigenvalue and its contribution to total variation obtained from principal component analysis. The first principal component (Z1 ) was applicable to increase plant height, capsule bearing stem length and 1,000-seed weight. The second principal component (Z2 ) negatively correlated with days to flowering and maturity by which it was applicable to shorten flowering and maturity date of sesame. At the scatter diagram, Yangbaek, Ansan, M1, M2, M4, M7 and M9 were classified as same group, but M10, Yanghuk, Kanghuk, M5, M6, M12 and M13 were classified as different group. This results would be helpful for sesame breeder to understand genetic relationship of some agronomic characters and select promising cross lines for the development of new sesame variety.

We conducted a QTL analysis of agronomic traits using 117 BC3F5 and BC3F6 lines developed from a cross between Ilpumbyeo and Moroberekan. Genotypes of 117 BC3F5 lines were determined using 134 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. A total of 832 Moroberekan chromosome segments with 410 homozygous and 422 heterozygous, respectively, were detected, and the genetic distance of introgression segments ranged from 0.5 cm to 112.1 cm. A linkage map constructed using 134 SSR markers was employed to characterize quantitative trait loci (QTL). The 117 BC3F5 and BC3F6 lines were evaluated for seven agronomic traits at two locations in 2006 and 2007 and at one location in 2007. A total of 26 QTLs were identified for seven traits including days to heading, and the phenotypic variance explained by each QTL ranged from 9.2% to 24.2%. Moroberekan alleles contributed positive effects in the Ilpumbyeo background at eleven QTL loci including panicle length and spikelets per panicle. Five QTLs, two for days to heading and one each for culm length, panicle length and spikelets per panicle were consistently detected in every occasions indicating that these QTLs are stable. Among them, two QTLs, spp6 for spikelets per panicle and pl6 for paniclel length were localized in the similar region. Increase in spikelets per panicle at this locus might be due to the increase in panicle length, because both traits were associated with increase in spikelets per panicle and panicle length due to the presence of the Moroberekan allele. These Moroberekan QTLs might be useful in breeding programs to develop high-yielding cultivars.

In the previous study, 141 BC3F2 lines from a cross between the Oryza sativa cv. Milyang 23 and O. glaberrima were used to identify favorable wild QTL alleles for yield component traits. In this study, we carried out QTL analysis of four grain morphology as well as four yield component traits using 141 BC3F5 lines from the same cross and compared QTLs detected in two different generations. The mean number of O. glaberrima segments in the 141 BC3F5 lines ranged from 1 to 13 with 2.69 and 5.71 of the average means of homozygous and heterozygous segments, respectively. There was a three-fold difference in the number of QTLs detected for four traits commonly evaluated in two generations (seven QTLs in the BC3F5 vs 21 in the BC3F2 population). The percentages of the phenotypic variance explained by QTLs in the BC3F5 population were similar to or less than those in the BC3F2 population. This is probably due to the difference in the genetic composition of two populations and the environmental effects. The locations of the QTLs commonly detected in both generations were in good agreement except for one QTL for spikelets per panicle. The yield QTL, yd3 was colocalized with the spikelets per panicle, spp3. Yield increase at this locus is due to the increase in spikelets per panicle, because both traits were associated with increase in spikelets per panicle and yield due to the presence of an O. glaberrima allele. Clusters of QTLs for grain morphology traits were observed in two chromosome regions. One cluster harboring five QTLs near SSR markers RM106 and RM263 was detected on chromosome 2. This population would serve as a foundation for development of the introgression line population from a cross between Milyang 23 and O. glaberrima.

In this study, a 141 BC3F4 lines from across between the O. sativa cv. Milyang23 as there current parent, and O. glaberrima as the donor parent was used to identify favorable QTL alleles from O. glaberrima for yield and yield components. To detect the introgressions, 198 microsatellite markers of known chromosomal position were used for the parental survey. Of the 178 markers, 128 (64.6%) showed polymorphism. Among them, 115 SSR markers were used to construct a genetic linkage map with average interval length of 12.7 cM based on the previous rice molecular genetic map. The mean number of O. glaberrima segments in the population was 1.84 ranging from 0 to 7. The average length of the segments was 16.6 cM and ranged from 0.5 to 232.5 cM. This population consisting of 141 lines was used to evaluate for six traits of agronomic importance and genotypes were determined for 141 BC3F5 using SSR markers. A total of 22 QTLs for 6 traits were detected on chromosomes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9. Phenotypic variance associated with each QTL ranged 9.5% ~ 58.2%. For 26 of the QTLs identified in this study, the O. glaberrima alleles contributed a desirable agronomic effect despite the over all undesirable characteristics of the wild phenotype. Favorable wild alleles were detected for culm length, panicle length, yield, panicles per plant and 1000-grain weight. When compared with previous studies involving interspecific crosses, it can be concluded that O. glaberrima is useful asa source of valuable alleles for rice improvement. There sults will be discussed.

This study was conducted to identify QTLs for some agronomic traits under two different N-fertilizer conditions. A recombinant inbred population (DT-RILs) between Dasanbyeo (a tongil type rice, derived from an indica × japonica cross and similar to indica in its genetic make-up) and TR22183 (a Chinese japonica variety), consisting of 166 F8 lines, was developed and used for mapping. A frame map of 1,409 cM containing 113 SSR and 103 STS markers with an average interval of 6.5 cM between adjacent marker loci was constructed using the DT-RILs. The DT-RILs were cultivated in ordinary N-fertilizer (N-P2O5-K2O=100-80-80 kg/ha) condition and low N-fertilizer (N-P2O5-K2O=50-80-80 kg/ha) condition in order to compare the different N-fertilizer effects. Grain yield was positively correlated with spikelet number in both conditions. Path analysis revealed that spikelet number is the most positive contributor to grain yield. Twenty-nine single QTLs (S-QTLs) and sixty-five pairs of epistatic loci (E-QTLs) were identified for days to heading, culm length, panicle length, panicle number, spikelet number, spikelet fertility, 1000-grains weight and grain yield in both N-fertilizer conditions. The phenotypic variance explained by these S-QTLs and E-QTLs ranged from 8.8% to 61.1% and from 10.0% to 55.6%, respectively. The total phenotypic variance explained by all the QTLs for each trait ranged from 15.4% to 92.3%.