Bakanae disease, also known as the foolish seedling disease, caused by Gibberella fujikuroi, is a serious issue in Korea. Since 2007, there has been a rapid increase in the occurrence of bakanae disease; this has caused severe yield loss to rice farmers every year. The most reliable and economical solution for managing bakanae disease is to cultivate resistant varieties; however, there are only a few rice varieties in Korea that can withstand this disease. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the resistance of 61 major rice varieties which account for 89% of the total rice cultivation area. Only six varieties showed intermediate or higher resistance to bakanae disease; this included Anpyeong and Samkwang. The genetic inconsistency between the bioassay results and the allele types of 12 molecular markers (associated with four QTLs) ranged from 4.7% to 48.7%. Therefore, more accurate markers, such as gene-based markers, are essential for monitoring general breeding programs or gene pyramiding.

Kernel weight is a vital trait for selecting high-yielding wheat in breeding programs. We evaluated the thousand-kernel weight (TKW), test weight (TW), grain length (GL), grain width (GW), grain thickness (GT), and grain roundness (GR) of 41 Korean winter wheat cultivars over a period of 4 years. Correlation analyses revealed that TKW was positively correlated with GL (r=0.76***), GW (r=0.85***), and GT (r=0.84***), whereas TW was negatively correlated with GL (r=-0.38*) and GT (r=-0.31*). Allelic variation was analyzed for 13 kernel weight-related genes/loci (TaCwi-A1, TaCWI-4A, TaCWI-5D, TaGW2-6A, TaTGW6-A1, TaTGW-7A, TaGS1a, TaSus1-7A, TaSus1-7B, TaSus2-2B, TaCKX6-D1, TaCKX6a02-D1, and TaSnRk2.3). Significant associations between the allelic variation and kernel traits were identified in TaCWI-4A (TW, GL, and GR), TaCWI-5D (TKW), TaGW2-6A (TKW, GL, GW, and GT), TaSus2-2B (TKW, GL, GW, and GT), and TaGS1a (TW). In contrast, we detected no significant association between the allelic variation of TaCwi-A1, TaTGW6-A1, TaSus1-7A, and TaSus1-7B and variations in kernel traits. Also, TaTGW-7A, TaCKX6-D1, TaCKX6a02-D1, and TaSnRK2.3 were found to be monomorphic. The four loci TaCWI-4A, TaCWI-5D, TaGW2-6A, and TaSus2-2B showed significant phenotypic differences, a totalof 10 different haplotypes (AC1-AC10) were observed at four loci among the Korean wheat cultivars. Cultivars with the AC1 haplotype exhibited significantly higher TKW than those with the AC8 haplotype, which comprises alleles for high TKW at all four loci, indicating that additional loci controlling kernel weight might be present in the high TKW cultivars.

Bakanae (foolish seedling) disease caused by Gibberella fujikuroi creates serious problems in the foremost rice growing countries. This study was conducted to identify new resistance genetic sources to Bakanae disease. Bioassay showed that 11 varieties including Gwangmyeongbyeo, Hawn, Wonseadaesoo, Erguailai etc. were resistant to bakanae disease among 254 rice germplasm. Mismatch ratio between phenotype on bakanae disease bioassay and allele type of RM9, a SSR marker closely linked the bakanae disease resistant QTL, qBK1, were 38.3%. These results suggest that RM9 might be used for selecting qBK1, but it cannot be used for wide range of rice germplasm. Resistant germplasm in this study might be have resistant genes different from qBK1. The eleven varieties resistant to selected in this study will be used to identify new resistant alleles or genes to improve bakanae disease resistance in rice.

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.