Two hundred and twenty three yeast strains were randomly isolated from Korean traditional nuruk. Among them, six urease producing yeast strains (designated JJA, JJB, JJ22, SHA, SHC and SH10) were selected on the Christensen urea agar plates. They showed the same pattern in the PCR-RFLP analysis of the ITS I-5.8S-ITS II region digested with HaeIII and HinF1 restriction endonucleases. Its DNA sequences showed 100% (strains SHA, SHC and SH10) and 99.8% (strains JJA, JJB and JJ22) identity with those of Issatchenkia orientalis type strain ATCC 24210. Phylogenetic analysis resulted in that all the strains were closely related to I. orientalis. Two representative strains, JJ22 and SH10, showing the highest urease activities were selected for further characterization. Their morphological, physiological and biochemical characteristics were also the same as I. orientalis. Therefore, both the two strains were identified as I. orientalis. They could grow at a wide range of temperature between 20-40℃ as well as pH between 2.0 and 10.0. However, a higher level urease activity were obtained at acidic pH than that at alkalic pH. The maximal level of urease activity was obtained at 30℃ (strain SH10) or 35℃ (strain JJ22) and in a liquid medium adjusted to the initial pH 5.0.

Chinese milk vetch (CMV) is a winter legume that is commonly used as cover crop in Korea. Kill date of cover crop for addition into soil affects N content in cover crop and N availability in soil. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of CMV as green manure cover crop according to kill dates before growing corn without artificial fertilizer. Top of CMV cut three times on 13 April, 27 April, and 11 May were added into soil at a rate of 600 kg per 10a. Sugar content in CMV litter was persistently decreased from mid-April to late-May. The decrease of sugar content might be due to the transformation into starch and/or other storage or structural constituents. The decreased amount of sugars was greater than 12% and the increased amount of starch was less than 0.2%. Concentration of NH4+ in soil treated by CMV litter cut on May 11 was slightly higher than that in the treatment with early-cut (April 13) CMV, the concentration at 28 and 49 DAT (days after treatment) was higher in the treatment with late-cut CMV litter. Regardless of cut (kill) date of CMV, the phosphatase activity in the treatment of CMV litter was higher compared to the untreated control. Soil dehydrogenase activity was increased steadily by addition of CMV litter implying total microbial activities in the soil were increased. Our results demonstrate that the status of cover crop species at kill date is an important factor influencing soil enzyme activities derived from microorganisms. Therefore, the optimal kill date of cover crop should be examined to improve the efficiency of cover crop as green manure crop regarding the practical sequence in cropping system

To study the effects of an urease inhibitor, N-(n-butyl)-thiophosphoric triamide (NBPT), and a nitrification inhibitor, dicyandiamide (DCD), on nitrogen losses and nitrogen use efficiency, urea fertilizer with or without inhibitors and slowrelease fertilizer (synthetic thermoplastic resins coated urea) were applied to direct-seeded flooded rice fields in 1998. In the urea and the urea+DCD treatments, NH4 + -N concentrations reached 50 mg N L-1 after application. Urea+NBPT and urea+ NBPT+DCD treatments maintained NH4 + -N concentrations below 10 mg N L-1 in the floodwater, while the slow-release fertilizer application maintained the lowest concentration of NH4 + -N in floodwater. The ammonia losses of urea+NBPT and urea+NBPT+DCD treatments were lower than those of urea and urea+DCD treatments during the 30 days after fertilizer application. It was found that N loss due to ammonia volatilization was minimized in the treatments of NBPT with urea and the slow-release fertilizer. The volatile loss of urea+DCD treatment was not significantly different from that of urea surface application. It was found that NBPT delayed urea hydrolysis and then decreased losses due to ammonia volatilization. DCD, a nitrification inhibitor, had no significant effect on ammonia loss under flooded conditions. The slow-release fertilizer application reduced ammonia volatilization loss most effectively. As N03 [-10] -N concentrations in the soil water indicated that leaching losses of N were negligible, DCD was not effective in inhibiting nitrification in the flooded soil. The amount of N in plants was especially low in the slow-release fertilizer treatment during the early growth stage for 15 days after fertilization. The amount of N in the rice plants, however, was higher in the slow-release fertilizer treatment than in other treatments at harvest. Grain yields in the treatments of slow-release fertilizer, urea+NBPT+ DCD and urea+NBPT were significantly higher than those in the treatments of urea and urea+DCD. NBPT treatment with urea and the slow-release fertilizer application were effective in both reducing nitrogen losses and increasing grain yield by improving N use efficiency in direct-seeded flooded rice field.field.