To improve their income, farmers should cultivate sorghum varieties with high productivity, short breeding period, and easy double cropping. To increase purchases by consumers, the sorghum variety must have health-related functions. To meet these demands, the 'Cheongpung' variety has been raised through net separation from the traditional species of the Chungbuk region as a sorghum variety that can be harvested by machine, have the highest yield in the country, and have the most abundant antioxidant content. The seed coat of ‘Cheongpung’ was reddish-brown, and had the characteristic of early maturation; it required only 107 days from sowing to harvest. Its culm length was 89 cm, the smallest among domestic cultivated varieties. It could also be harvested by machine without difficulty. Compared with the ‘Hwanggeumchal’ variety, the number of ear per plant in ‘Cheongpung’ was approximately 1.3, but each ear piece weighed 66.2 g, weighing 3.8 g, and the thousand-grain weight was 1.4 grams higher than the rough-grain weight. A local adaptation test in five regions nationwide for two years led to a ‘Cheongpung’ yield of 359 kg/10a, which was the highest among domestic cultivated varieties. In addition, the polyphenol content of ‘Cheongpung’ was 29% higher than that of ‘Hwanggeumchal’. (Registration No. 7717)
To satisfy the health needs of consumers and enhance the yields of producers, a grain crop ‘Cheongpungchal’ (Panicum miliaceum L.) with many common names, including proso millet, was collected from a landrace in Danyang, Chungbuk province and developed using a pure-line selection method. ‘Cheongpungchal’, which has a brown seed coat, has characteristics of a medium-maturing variety, requiring 102 days from sowing to harvesting. The variable growth characteristics included a stem length of 155 cm on average and length of ears 38.4 cm on average. As for the yield-related characteristics, the average number of spikes per plant was 3.8, the ear weight per plant was 11.8 g, and the rough millet thousand-grain weight averaged 5.17 g. The results of a regional adaptation test in 5 regions of Korea for three years revealed the yield of ‘Cheongpungcha’l to be 38% higher than that of the ‘Hwanggeumgijang’ variety, representing the best yield from among existing varieties. The total polyphenolic content of ‘Cheongpungchal’ was 32% higher than that of the ‘Hwanggeumgijang’ variety, and the antioxidant activity was 63% greater than that of ‘Hwanggeumgijang’. As a result of this research, ‘Cheongpungchal’ has been registered as a variety (grant number No. 6964) with the Korea Seed and Varieties Service in 2018 following filing for breed protection in 2016.