Breeders typically use core collections of a specific trait or core collections selected by a few genotypes to efficiently select breeding materials or to study functional genes. As a result, many accessions have been deemed redundant or duplicated and are no longer considered for use. This study aimed to investigate the agronomical characteristics and genetic diversity of 1,514 previously unused and unstudied wheat germplasms and to confirm their value as breeding materials using population structure analysis. The performance of these wheat germplasms was compared with that of 8,878 wheat breeding materials and 72 known Korean wheat cultivars. The results of agronomic trait diversity comparison showed that the germplasm populations used for breeding research did not completely encompass the unused germplasm populations. The agronomic traits of wheat germplasms varied greatly. ANOVA and PCA results revealed the greatest differences in growth habits (CV=0.339), panicle length (CV=0.330), and awn length (CV=0.296). To accurately assess the value of unused wheat germplasms as breeding materials, 106 SSR markers were extracted from the analysis of four representative Korean cultivars: Geuru, Geumgang, Uri, and Jokyoung. Among these, 24 SSR markers were chosen, and 129 wheat resources were subjected to population structure analysis, which revealed five subpopulations. Most of the 34 germplasms that originated in Korea were distributed in subpopulation 1 (18 accessions, 52.9%) and subpopulation 4 (12 accessions, 35.3%). Subgroups 2, 3, and 5 differed significantly in agronomic traits and genotypes, indicating their potential as breeding materials. The findings of this study could serve as a foundation for breeders and aid in the discovery and utilization of new wheat breeding materials.

In this study, genotype analysis was conducted using the Fluidigm system with 13 SNP markers related to anthracnose, powdery mildew, phytophthora root rot, cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), potyvirus, and tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) resistance. A total of 25,350 data points were obtained, 8.2% of which indicated resistance genotypes. Resources having perfect resistance genotype to each disease-related molecular marker set were 58 accessions for anthracnose, 57 for powdery mildew, 246 for phytophthora root rot, and 765 for CMV. There was no resource having a perfect resistance genotype of all three potyvirus-related molecular SNP markers including pvr1, pvr2 (123457), and pvr2 (689). Thirty-seven accessions for pvr1, 349 accessions for pvr2 (123457), and 23 accessions for pvr2 (689) were identified as resources with resistance genotype. No resource with the TMV-resistance genotype was found in this study. The resources with complex resistance genotypes of anthracnose and powdery mildew were 55 accessions, and they were mainly Capsicum baccatum. Among these, seven accessions had a three-disease combined resistance genotype with phytophthora root rot. Thirty-six accessions, 16 accessions, and nine accessions each had resistance genotypes of the three potyvirus-related markers. These resources also had CMV and phytophthora root rot resistance genotypes, and they were mainly Capsicum chinense. The statistical analysis considering the evaluated resistance genotypes, revealed that the anthracnose resistance genotype showed a tendency to be linked with powdery mildew resistance genotype. The potyvirus-related marker pvr1 was positively correlated with Phytophthora root rot markers.

In this study, composition and agronomic traits, including yield-related traits, were investigated and compared among 35 Korean landrace germplasm for two years (2019 and 2020). The contents of 12 isoflavones were measured using high-performance liquid chromatography, and agronomic trait data were collected according to the Rural Development Administration criteria. Comparing isoflavone composition between the two years, all isoflavones, except glycitein, were generally higher in 2019. The values of yield-related and major agronomic traits decreased in most accessions in 2020. ANOVA showed highly significant differences (p<0.001) in genotypes, years, and genotype-by-year interaction for all isoflavones, the number of pods per plant, and 100-seed weight. The number of seeds per pod, days to flowering, and days to maturity also showed significant differences among genotypes, as well as between the two years. Correlation analysis revealed that daidzin and genistin were positively correlated with their malonylated form. Malonyl daidzin was also positively correlated with malonyl genistin levels. The accessions with the least variation in the total isoflavone content were IT 153844 (907.5 µg/g, 898.6 µg/g) and IT 252252 (663.2 µg/g, 636.4 µg/g). Some of the evaluated landraces will be a promising genetic source for developing soybean varieties with high levels of environmental stability in isoflavone content and agronomic traits.

The National Agrobiodiversity Center of the RDA, Korea, has more than 22,700 accessions of global wheat genetic resources, including Korean wheat cultivars and landraces. Despite the numerous efforts to develop high-quality, hard winter wheat, the employment of new genetic resources into Korean wheat breeding programs is still hampered by the different growing environments. To overcome this limitation, 200 germplasms that were screened using the Genebank Management System (GMS) were evaluated in three different regions in Korea. In the 2018–2019 trial, 55 lines that showed superior field performance and high protein content were selected from among the 200 germplasms. These lines were re-evaluated in the 2019–2020 trial, and 24 lines that had suitable traits for growth, grain yield, and grain protein content in three locations were finally selected. These winter wheat germplasms also showed high yield stability throughout the three different environments in Korea. Preliminary screening using GMS information, consecutive regional tests, and quality tests could be effective procedures for the development of hard winter wheat in Korea. Therefore, introduction breeding could be a favorable breeding method aiming to improve quality, where useful genetic resources are limited.

Oats are known for their abundance of quality proteins and lipids compared to those of other grain crops; they especially contain a large amount of good quality fibers, including β-glucan. The Korean domestic consumption of oats is rapidly increasing due to their high nutritional value. However, the research for functional food breeding material has been insufficient because oats have been focused on as feed. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the agronomic traits and important nutritional ingredients, including β-glucan, protein, lipid, fiber, and dietary fiber, of 142 oat germplasms from Korea, China, and Japan, which are maintained in the National Agrobiodiversity Center. In addition, the diversity by origin of the germplasms was analyzed based on their agronomic traits. For the agronomic characteristics, Korean oat germplasms were on average headed and matured earlier than the Chinese and Japanese ones. Seven accessions, including IT151107, were matured before mid-June, which makes double cropping possible in the Southern region of Korea. In the diversity analysis by origin based on quantitative agronomic traits, Korean oat germplasms were in the distinguished group compared to Chinese and Japanese germplasms. Oat germplasm had a wider range of main ingredients compared to that of Korean domestic oat cultivars. However, Chinese germplasms had a significantly higher β-glucan content, while Korean germplasms had significantly higher crude protein, crude lipid, and crude fiber contents, than did other germplasms from other origins. Dietary fiber contents showed no significant differences between origins. IT129802 (China), IT166594 (Korea), IT166584 (Korea), IT151108 (Korea), and IT129798 (China) showed the highest β-glucan, protein, lipid, fiber, and dietary fiber contents, respectively. These selected oat germplasms can be superior breeding materials for various functional and agronomic purposes.

This study was carried out to investigate the utilization value of legume crops collected in tropical and subtropical areas. We examined agronomic traits to assess domestic adaptability and evaluated useful components of foreign legumes. We used a total of 201 genetic resources of three legumes, consisting of 68 lentils, 72 chickpeas and 61 guars. The average number of days to flowering of the three legumes ranged from 56.7 to 60.8 days; the shortest in guar and longest in chickpea. The average number of days to growth of the three legumes ranged from the shortest 86.8 days in lentil, to the longest 163.9 days in guar. The maturation period of the three legumes lasted from the end of May until mid-September, based on sowing in March. However, the average yield of lentil was very low, ranging from 0.5 g to 30.6 g, with an average 16.4 g based on 10 plants per accession. The average 100 seed weight of the three legumes was 2.2 g for lentil, 22.9 g for chickpea, and 3.8 g for guar. The crude protein content ranged from 14.1% to 32.4% with an average of 20.4%, the highest for guar and the lowest for chickpea. The average crude oil content in the three legume crops was generally low, ranging from 0.8% in lentil, to 4.3% in chickpea. The average dietary fiber content in the three legume crops varied from 15.7% to 50.7%. Guar was the highest source of fiber, followed by chickpea (19.3%) and lentil (15.7%). From the agricultural traits analysis, chickpea and guar could grow domestically. However, lentil was difficult to flower and fruit normally during the warmer season after May. Therefore, lentil should be considered for late summer cropping during the cool season. The physicochemical properties of the three legumes seem to be useful as they are similar to, or better than, those of the control common bean.

This study was investigated to develop mass evaluation system for the contents of crude protein, oil and fatty acid in soybean germplasm using NIRS. NIRS equations were created with 345 soybeans, multiple correlation coefficients of crude protein, oil, palmitic, stearic, oleic, linoleic and linolenic acid between data obtained from NIRS and quantitative analysis were 0.983, 0.969, 0.592, 0.514, 0.978, 0.961 and 0.957, respectively. Equation statistics indicated that contents of crude protein, oil and unsaturated fatty acid except palmitic and stearic acid in soybean seed were suitable for determination by NIRS. Those NIRS equations were applied to examine crude protein, oil and unsaturated fatty acid of 854 soybean landraces from Korea. The average contents and ranges of crude protein and oil were 39.2% with a range of 33.7-47.0% and 15.0% with a range of 9.8-20.3%, individually. In addition, those of oleic, linoleic and linolenic acid were 21.4% with a range of 12.1-30.2%, 55.6% with a 47.8-62.3% and 8.1% with a range of 5.9-10.7% respectively. We conducted quantitative analysis to reconfirm with IT154552 (45.1%) and IT023955(46.9%) above 45% of crude protein, the results were similar from NIRS (45.2%, 47.0%). NIRS data for protein from this study made no difference with lab data, which would be useful for mass evaluation. There was negative correlation (-0.203) between crude protein and oil, positive correlation (0.379) between crude oil and oleic acid, and significantly negative correlation (-0.879) between oleic and linoleic acid.

This study is to raise the utilization of genetic resources of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) landrace from East Asia (Korea, Japan, and China) by evaluating genetic variation related to end use quality concerned to bread making quality and early maturity, two very important characteristics of Korean wheat cropping system. To clarify the allelic variation of Glu-1 loci which decides HMW glutenin subunit composition, SDS-PAGE and DNA marker analysis were conducted by using 485 East Asian landrace wheat accessions in National Agrobiodiversity Center, RDA and NIAS genebank. And useful accessions getting full mark of glu-1 score and early maturity were selected to enhance the utilization of genetic resources to Korean wheat breeding.

In this study, wheats from China showed the distinct characteristic. Whereas Glu-A1c (null) and Glu-B1b (7+8) allele are the most frequent in Korean and Japanese accessions, Glu-A1a (2^*) and Glu-B1c (7^*+9) are the most in Chinese accessions. When it comes to unique composition, Glu-B1f (13+16) and Glu-D1e (2+10) subunits are only in Chinese resources. Glu-B1d (6+8), Glu-B1e (20), Glu-D1b (7+8), and Glu-D1c (4+1) subunits are only in Korean resources. The accessions from China also has high PIC value (0.53) compared to ones from Korea (0.35) and Japan (0.35). Grouping by UPGMA analysis of combination of Glu-1 allele, most accessions from Korea and Japan are in the same group, but most Chinese ones were distinguished as the distinctive group. The evaluation of bread baking quality by Glu-1 scoring system, 26 accessions got full marks. Among them, 16 accessions from China were also matured before early June, suitable to Korean cropping system. Especially, 3 accessions (K151847, K151865, K151962) had very early maturity, matured in late May. These genetic resources, having good gluten composition and early maturity, are expected to widely be used for Korean wheat breeding.

This study was conducted to compare the agricultural characteristics of total 444 common bean accessions from Korea (296), China (76), and El Salvador (72). Days to flowering were ranged from 41 to 83 days with an average of 61 days. Days to sowing to maturing were ranged from 86 to 143 days with an average of 104 days. Common beans from El Salvador tend to bloom and mature 3 to 7 days earlier than Korea and China accessions. In growth habit, over 50% of Korea and China accessions were indeterminate and climbing type, but 90.1% from El Salvador were Semi-determinate and climbing type. Qualitative traits were much different among three countries. Eighty-two percentage of immature pod colors were dark pink from El Salvador, but many of those were pale yellow from Korea (77.6%) and China (61.8%). Seed shapes were divided into four types of round, oval, cubic and kidney type, and the highest percentage of those were 30.4% with kidney type. The highest of those was 36.6% with oval type from Korea, 55.3% with kidney type from China and 79.2% with cubic type from El Salvador. Morphological characteristics of common bean from El Salvador were much different from those of Korea and China, which is necessary to collect more germplasm from its native and expand genetic diversity of common beans. Four hundred thirty-five common beans from Korea, China and El Salvador were analyzed using SSR markers. Ninety-two alleles were detected with a lowest of 6 at the BM161, BM181 and a highest of 18 at the BM154, BM160. The average polymorphism information content (PIC) was 0.72. To similar with population size among three countries, 292 Korean accessions divided four replications with 73 accessions. As a result genetic diversity was the highest of 0.73 in Chinese populations, while the lowest of 0.48 in El Salvador populations.

This experiment was carried out to compare the morphological traits of 880 Korean soybean landraces from RDA genebank. Days to flowering were ranged from 51 to 104 days with an average of 74.4 days, days from flowering to maturity were ranged from 28 to 106 days with an average of 72.2 days, days from planting to maturity were ranged from 101 to 188 days with an average 146.6 days. Growth days were the shortest with 140.6 days in soybean landraces from Gangwon Province, and the longest with 152.8 days in those from Jeju Province. The 100 seed weight was ranged from 4.3 to 46.4 g with an average of 26.1 g, higher than other studies, relatively. The 100 seed weight was the lightest from Gyeongnam Province (22.7 g), and the heaviest from Chungnam Province (29.1 g). The highest percentage of seed coat color was black (52.4%), followed by yellow (28.5%). Landraces from Gyeongnam Province was the most yellow seed coat with 50.7%, seed coat color of those from Jeju was similar proportion in yellow (33.3%), green (25.9%) and black one (40.7%), and that from Gyeonggi was more green (28.8%) than yellow (16.7%). As a result of cotyledon color in 460 black seed was 59.7% with yellow, 40.1% with green. Three hundred fifty accessions of Korean soybean landraces were analyzed using 7 SSR markers. One hundred ten alleles were detected with a lowest 10 at the Satt307 and a highest 26 at the Satt173. The average polymorphism information content (PIC) was 0.71. Gene diversity was the highest in Jeju province while the lowest in Jeonnam.