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).

Plant regeneration protocols via adventitious shoot organogenesis from leaf segments of Chrysanthemum morifolium ‘Baekma’ were developed. The effects of plant growth regulators (BA, NAA, IBA, IAA and 2,4-D) and AgNO₃ were tested to figure out the optimal condition for shoot bud induction and shoot formation from leaf explants. On the combination treatment of plant growth regulators and AgNO₃, bud induction was obtained but shoot formation was not. Therefore, two-stage treatment of leaf explants was subsequently experimented for the respective improvement of adventitious bud induction and shoot formation. When leaf explants were cultured on bud induction medium (MS medium supplemented with 0.2 mg/L BA, 1.0 mg/L IAA and 1.0 mg/L 2,4-D) for 4 weeks in darkness and were transferred to shoot formation medium (MS medium supplemented with 1.0 mg/L BA, 1.5 mg/L IBA and 5.0 mg/L AgNO₃) for 4 weeks under the 16/8h photoperiod condition, shoot formation efficiency reached up to 50.0% and 1.6 shoots per explant were acquired. At 12 weeks after culture, the regenerated shoots were elongated and rooted on MS medium. The plantlets were acclimatized successfully and the regenerated plants exhibited normal phenotypes.