Artificial selection of ginseng has been practiced since Hwangsook (with yellow pericarp and a green stalk, and was developed from a landrace parent) and Cheonggyeong (with red pericarp) were selected as breeding lines in 1926. Systematic research into ginseng breeding, however, started in earnest in the 1960s when the Central Research Institute of Monopoly and Technology (CRIMT) was established, and the Korean Ginseng Experiment Station was organized under the CRIMT. Research into variant characteristics, resource collections, and genetic evaluations began around this time. With the establishment of the Korean Ginseng Institute in the 1970s, studies involving pedigree selection, cataloguing of agricultural traits of genetic resources, generation shortening by tissue culture, and heritability assessments were conducted. In the 1980s, regional adaptation tests were carried out on breeding lines, focusing on ginseng-producing districts. In the 1990s, research was performed on seed multiplication for variety diffusion, effective components and processing quality, and cross breeding. Foreign ginsengs were introduced for interspecies hybridization, and studies were conducted using genetic engineering techniques. Since the 2000s, applications have been made to patent different ginseng cultivars. Currently, 32 cultivars are registered at the Korea Seed & Variety Service. Future goals for ginseng breeding include developing climate change- and disaster-resistant, consumer-oriented, high-performance cultivars. Therefore, it is necessary to develop technologies for distributing new cultivars by collecting and evaluating genetic resources, and cross breeding and performing mass propagation using these resources.

Ginseng (Panax ginseng) is a self-fertilized crop, and all ginseng cultivars developed until now have been bred by pure-line selection. Ginseng has few genetic variations and lacks diversity in genetic resources. To obtain genetic resources with useful traits, mutations must be artificially induced. In this study, indehiscent seeds from ginseng landrace were treated with 20 to 400 Gy of gamma rays for 24 hours to determine the optimal dose for mutation breeding. Results showed no significant differences in seed dehiscence rates among the 0 Gy (control) to 80 Gy groups. However, above 100 Gy, the dehiscence rate sharply decreased as the radiation dose increased. Seed development below 40 Gy was superior to that of control but declined rapidly above 60 Gy. The seedling survival rate decreased significantly at 60 Gy (less than 50% compared to that of the control), and most seeds did not survive above 100 Gy. We observed a significant reduction in the growth of seedlings irradiated above 60 Gy. The above results suggest that a suitable gamma-ray dose for inducing mutagenesis in indehiscent ginseng seeds is 40 Gy.