Aralia elata (Miq.) Seem. (the Korean angelica tree) is a popular wild spring vegetable crop in East Asia. Owing to its ease of cultivation and harvesting from the second year after planting, this species is a promising forest crop for short-term income. However, the presence of prickles on the stems and shoots reduces harvesting efficiency and negatively affects product quality. This study reports the breeding and morphological characteristics of a new prickle-less cultivar, ‘Seochun’, which exhibits strong cold tolerance and early sprouting. Among the 192 native accessions collected across Korea, a superior prickle-less and cold-tolerant clone was selected and evaluated over two years (2019-2020) of field trials. The stems of ‘Seochun’ were completely smooth and prickle-less, with a larger basal diameter (40.0 mm) compared to the control (29.7 mm). The sprouting and harvesting times were approximately seven days earlier than those of the control. As an early harvest and prickle-less cultivar of A. elata, ‘Seochun’ is expected to improve both the shoot productivity and labor efficiency during harvesting and cutback operations (Research support number: 375).

Aralia elata (Miq.) Seem. is a deciduous broad-leaved shrub distributed throughout northeast Asia, including Korea. The new shoots that sprout in early spring in Korea are consumed as a high-quality wild vegetable. As the trees are easy to cultivate and can be harvested from the second year after planting, they have become a popular forest product for short-term income. Conventional cultivars had large and numerous thorns on their stems and shoots, making pruning or collecting shoots difficult. However, some thornless cultivars exhibited poor cold resistance, which limited their cultivation areas. To solve this problem, excellent trees were selected across the country and tested to develop a novel cultivar with no or few thorns, strong cold resistance, and early harvesting times. Based on these results, the cultivar, ‘Yeongchun’, was bred. Although no significant difference in the size of ‘Yeongchun’ shoots was observed when compared to that of the control, its weight per piece was 34.6 g, which was 74% larger than the 19.9 g measured for the control. Moreover, the number and diameter of shoots originating from primordia in the roots of Yeongchun were 6.1 and 55.7 mm, respectively, which were about twice as large as the 2.6 and 29.7 mm measured for the control, resulting in a higher yield. In addition, the harvesting period was more than a week earlier than that of general individuals, showing the characteristics of early production (Grant number 323).