World Conference on Horticultural Research - 17-20 June 1998 in Rome, Italy

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Horticultural Research in the Republic of Korea

Industry

In 1995, population;

Industry

In 1995, population in the agricultural sector was 4.84 million in 1.5 million farm households and it is equivalent to 10.8% of the total population. Out of 9.93 million ha of total land, 1,985 million ha was aerble and the land utilisation rate per year was 108.1%. Due to the decreasing trend of farm households and agricultural population, average farm size bas been showing an increasing trend from 1.12 ha in 1986 to 1.32 ha in 1995. Out of the total average farm income of 21,802 thousand Won or US$28,832, 48% is generated by farming.

Total planted area was 2,196,600 ha in 1995. Vegetables, fruit trees, and ornemental crops occupied 347 thousand, 172 thousand and 5 thousand ha, respectively. Among vegetables, condiments occupies the largest land area: 92 for red pepper, 40 for garlic, 23 for Welsh onion, 16 for onion in thousand ha. Among leafy vegetables which have 66,700 ha of planted land, Chinese cabbage is the most important (46,500 ha), followed by lettuce (8,300 ha) spinach (8,200 ha) and cabbage (6,600 ha). Other than radish (35,500 ha) and carrot (5,800 ha), there are not much root vegetables grown in the country. Watermelon (45,200 ha) occupies the largest planted area among cucurbit vegetables, followed by oriental melon (12,000 ha) cucumber (8,500 ha), and squash and pumpkin (7,100 ha). The planted area of potato, strawberry and tomato are 25,000 ha, 7,400 ha and 3,900 ha, respectively. Apple (50,a and 3,900 ha, respectively. Apple (50,100 ha) occupies the largest orchard area among fruit trees, and is followed by grapes (25,600 ha), persimmon (25,000 ha), citrus crops (23,622 ha), oriental pear (15,700 ha), peach (10,200 ha), plum (2,700 ha) and miscellaneous fruit trees. Among ornemental crops, Chrysanthemum, rose, gypsophile, azalea, lily, carnation and orchid are the most widely planted items in the descending order.

Research policy

Korean agriculture is characterized by small scale and labor- and capital-intensiveness. High land cost and high wage contribute to the high place of the agricultural products. Under new international trade control system of WTO, Korea's agricultural market is becoming more open and consequently competitiveness in quality and price bas become an critical issue. To cope with the changing environment, the government decided to increase investment in agriculture research mainly through two ways; strengthening the research systems under the central and provincial govemment and budgeting a new funding source of about 550 million US dollars during 10 years from 1994. The new funding is channeled through Agricultural Research Promotion Center mainly to support the joint project among agricultural universities, plivate industries, and public research organisations.

Horticultural crops are considered to be a better source of rural income than other crops and some of them areincome than other crops and some of them are regarded as good items for exportation. Researches are mostly aimed to save production cost and labor and to enhance the quality and growers' income by all means available. One important task in horticultural area is to defend the supply base of essentiel items in the peoples' diet (such as hot pepper, garlic and onion), and that of major income sources of horticultural farmers (such as mandarin oranges and apple). Another important task is to develop new items for local and export market. Apple, oriental pear, tomato, cucumber, rose and grafted cactus are regarded to have potentiel for either or both markets.

Priority areas of research in horticulture are as follows;

- Varietal improvement of horticulture] crops through conventional breeding and biotechnology
- Technology improvement for year-round production or supply of major horticultural produces
- Varietal improvement and production systems development for labor-saving in farming
- Development of farming models specialized in selected items
- Seed treatment and processing technologies
- Consumption and market analyses of horticultural products
- Quality improvement through plant genetic modification, cultural methods and post-harvest handling
- Greenhouse management technology for sustained optimum plant growth and comfortable farming environment
- Propagation techniques for healthy seeding
- Propagation techniques for healthy seeding materials of vegetatively propagated crops
- Germplasm collection, conservation, characterization, evaluation and D/B construction of horticultural crops
- Farm management packages for integration of irrigation, fertilisation and pest control
- Mechanization of farm management and farm-machinery development
- Technology for enhanced food safety and environment protection
- Development of new specialty crops from native and introduced plant species
- Encouragement of interdisciplinary projects among govemment, public and private sectors
- Enhancement of international cooperation

Research systems

In the Republic of Korea, governmental institutions under the umbrella of Rural Development Administration have traditionally played almost exclusive role in the field of agricultural research. It was due to the seriously limited amount of research fund flowed to universities and too much teaching load borne by the faculty members. The situation was not much different in horticulture although there are departments of horticulture in about thirty universities. Only from 1994, considerable amount of research fund from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has been provided for projects led or implemented by universities.

National Horticultural Research Institute is the prime national organization in the field of horticulture. In addition, Iization in the field of horticulture. In addition, Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology and three regional agricultural experiment stations under RDA system are also involved in horticultural research to certain extents. Each of nine provinces has a horticulture section in its research bureau. Thirty-three commodite experiment stations were established in the major production areas of the specific crop commodities in three years' period of 1994-1996 throughout the country, each of them is staffed with nine researchers and a few supporting personnel and is to devote itself to research of a single crop or a target area of a group of crops. Out of them twenty-three are mandated with horticultural crops. There are quite a few private institutes belonging to seed companies. Their activity is exclusively for developing commercial cultivars of major vegetables and for local and export market.

National Horticultural Research Institute (NHRI)

NHRI is the prime national institute responsable for strategic and applied research in the field of horticulture. It has nine research divisions and a separate division for general service in two campuses located in Suwon. The nine divisions are Vegetable Breeding, Vegetable Cultivation, Fruit Tree Breeding, Fruit Tree Cultivation, Floriculture 1 and II, Protected Horticulture, Horticultural Crops Environment and Horticultural Produce Storage and Utilization. NHRI also haduce Storage and Utilization. NHRI also has three institutes, each of which is charged with a single fruit crop. They are Apple Research Institute located in the central part of South Korea, Oriental Pear Research Institute sited in southwestem part of the peninsula, and Citrus Research Institute stationed in Cheiu island. In addition, NHRI operates a research farm in Namhae county located in the southem coast of the peninsula. This farm is mandated to produce basic seed potatoes and research on kiwi fruit, yuzu and some ornemental crops.

Staff size of NHRI is 275 permanent employees plus around 550 temporary employees. About ten postdoctorate fellows, some 200 research assistants and about 350 field laborers are included in the second category. Among the regular staff (permanent employees), 190 are scientific staff, 68 are technical staff and the rest are administrative staff. Sixty-four persons are allocated for vegetable research, 88 persons for fruit crops, 35 for omamentals and 3 for viticulture and grape breeding. Out of US$26,780,000 of 1995 budget, 46.5% or US$12,451 was spent for fruit tree research, while 31% and 13.6% were spent for vegetables and ornamentals, respectively. For viticulture and grape breeding 0.9% of the total budget was allocated. In terms of subject areas, plant genetic improvement and integrated production systems research received the highest attention with the allocated budget of US$9,614,000 and US$9llocated budget of US$9,614,000 and US$9,311,000, respectively. For propagation/nursery management and stress (biotic and abiotic), and post harvest handling, US$1,303,000, US$3,259,000, and US$1,306,000 were allocated, respectively. On economics/management/marketing related researches, US$1,984,000 or 7.4% of the total budget was spent.

Major research projects in vegetable crops are:

- Germplasm collection, conservation, characterization and evaluation
- Breeding for major diseases in red pepper, watermelon, squash and Chinese cabbage
- Breeding for once-over harvest of hot pepper
- Development of male sterile lines in radish, Chinese cabbage, and tomato through conventional method and/or protoplast fusion
- Seed quality enhancement of gourd, hot pepper and carrot
- Breeding for quality improvement of oriental melon and watermelon
- Crossbreeding of garlic
- Development of molecular markers for resistance screening
- Improvement of grafting techniques in Cucurbits and tomato
- Greenhouse management for high yield, high quality and labor saving
- Utilization of plug seedling for mechanized farming
- Development of nutrient solution specialized for crops and seasons
- Structural improvement of greenhouse and efficient utilisation of greenhouse materials
- Monitoring and utilisation of intact plant reaction to environment for crop management in greenhouse
-ironment for crop management in greenhouse
- Techniques for minimizing the heating cost of greenhouse and
- Improvement of soil environment for greenhouse crops.

Major research projects in fruit trees including grape are:

- Germplasm collection, conservation, characterization and evaluation
- Collection and evaluation of spontaneous mutants in major fruit trees
- Breeding of apple, oriental pear, peach, and grapes for high quality and extended supply period
- Breeding of spur-type of and dwarfing root stocks for major fruit crops
- Breeding for resistance to major diseases and insect pests
- Genetic studies on major characters and in vitro propagation
- Transformation of genes for high soluble solid content and that for fruiting control
- Development of labor-saving orchard management technologies
- Control methods of major diseases, insect pests and physiological disorders in major cultivars of apple, pear, peach and grape
- Studies on training methods of fruit trees
- Development of greenhouse production system for citruses, grape and oriental pear
- Development of short-cycled high-density orchard in major fruit crops
- Canopy and density control of efficient utilisation of sun light in major fruit crops
- Utilization of virus-free seedling for improved quality and productivite in grape, apple and oriental pear
- Development of technology for rapid culpear
- Development of technology for rapid cultivar-substitution in old orchards of apple and pear
- Polyploid utilisation for varietal improvement, and
- Soil management in orchards

Major research projects in ornemental crops are:

- Breeding of chrysanthemum, carnation, gladiolus, lily, grafted cactus, orchids, rose, hibiscus, petunia and pansy
- In vitro rapid multiplication of lily and orchids
- Storage of seed bulbs and roots of major vegetatively propagated ornamentals
- Box culture technology of lilies
- Development of new ornemental crops from native and introduced species
- Development of hydroponics of rose and other cut flower crops
- Effect of sub-irrigation methods for poinsetia and other ornemental crops
- Development of production system for cut flower of orchids, and
- Control of flowering time in major ornamentals

In the field of horticultural crops environment, major research projects are:

- Isolation, purification and application of attenuated virus
- Production of viral anti-sera and development of diagnosis kit for viral diseases
- Development of forecasting system for major diseases and insects
- Development and application of natural enemies for selected diseases and insect pests
- Survey of major diseases and insect pests occurrence in major horticultural crops
- Monitoring injury from consecutive mono-croppin crops
- Monitoring injury from consecutive mono-cropping and development of healthy soil management practices
- Fertilizer level studies to establish recon-imendations to growers in different soil types, and
- Effect of fermented and other organic fertilizers

In the field of storage and utilisation of horticultural produces, major research projects are:

- Storage and shipping method development for prolongea freshness of perishable vegetables including radish, and cherry tomato
- Development of new processed food from melon, radish and other vegetables
- Storage method improvement of apple and oriental pear for export markets
- Packing method improvement of strawberry for export markets
- Utilization of ethylene-releasing agent for after-ripening of fruits
- Control of post harvest diseases and disorders of major fruits, cut flowers and cucurbit vegetables
- Development of fermented food from apple, persimmon, plum and mandarin oranges
- Construction of database of traditional technical knowhows in agriculture.

Regional Agricultural Experiment Stations

There are four regional agricultural experiment stations under Rural Development Administration. They are Honam AES responsable for southwest region, Youngnam AES for southeastem region, Alpine AES for highland agriculture and Cheju AES for Cheju island. Except for Honam AES, each of the other three RAESs have a divir Honam AES, each of the other three RAESs have a division for horticultural crops research. As noticed from the narnes of the stations, their research scope is focused more on the applied aspect or region specific problem areas. For example, Youngnam AES focuses on vegetable production technologies in plastic film houses and varietal improvement of the crops grown in the protective structures, taking advantage of warm temperature and abundant sunshine of the located area. Alpine AES located at the altitude of 800m from sea level focuses on the summer production of vegetables and flowers, and seed potato production to support the highland horticulture taking advantage of cool summer weather and low aphid population in the area. Cheju AES takes care of the horticultural industry of the island, of which major crops are early onion, overwintering cabbages, potato and carrot, and many warm season ornamentals including orchids.

Provincial Rural Development Administrations

Each of nine provinces bas its own rural development administration which consists of research bureau and extension bureau. In research bureau, mostly there are divisions for farm management, field crops, horticultural crops and crops environment. In the horticulture divisions, there are sections for vegetables, fruit trees and ornamentals and each section mostly comprises 3 to 6 researchers, depending upon the relative importance of among the three se relative importance of among the three sectors and of total horticulture in relation to other crops in the specific provinces. Their research projects are in general on improvement of cultural practices of the crops important in the provinces. There are also some limited amount of activities related to varietal test and plant genetic improvement on selected crops. In terms of budget size, they cover 19.1% of the total budget for horticultural research, except for inflow from the Agricultural Research Promotion Center.

Commodity experiment stations

As mentioned in the policy section, recently Korean government has implemented a policy to strengthen the research capability of the RDA system. As a part of the policy, provincial governments were encouraged to establish experiment stations to work on a single selected crop. Central govemment provided financial support for purchasing land and basic equipments and for construction of the buildings for the stations. Around the country, a total of thirty-three stations were established in major production areas of the respective crop commodities in the period of 1994-1996. Among them, 23 are for horticultural crops. They are Mushroom Experiment Station in Kwangju, Cactus ES in Koyang of Kyonggi Province, Native Edible Herbs ES in Pyongchang, Root Vegetables ES in Kangnung of Kangwon Province, Protected Grape ES in Okchon, Garlic ES in Tanyang, and Grape ES in Okchon, Garlic ES in Tanyang, and Greenhouse Vegetables ES in Umsong of Chungbuk Province, Strawberry ES in Nonsan, Tomato ES in Puyo, Chrysanthemum ES in Yesan, Lily ES in Taean of Chungnam Province, Highland Floriculture ES in Namwon, Watermelon ES in Kochang of Chonbuk Province, Warm Weather Fruit Crop ES in Haenam, Yuzu ES in Kohung, Cucumber ES in Kurye of Chonnam Province, Fruiting Vegetables ES in Songju, Peach ES in Chongdo, Astringent Persimmon ES in Sangju, Red Pepper ES in Yongyang of Kyongbuk Province, Onion ES in Changnyong, Non-astringent Persimmon ES in Kimhae and Greenhouse Floriculture ES in Changwon of Kyongnam Province.

These stations are mostly staffed with 9 researchers and a few technical or supporting employees. They have been busy with deciding the site, constructing facilities and recruiting staff. Research scope may cover from breeding to cultivation aspects and post harvest handling, processing and marketing. Mostly they have conducted surveys on the major production areas of the mandated crop commodities to identify the problem areas to be tackled by their research in the future. They also have collected germplasm including wild types, related species and leading varieties predominant among local as well as foreign growers.

Private breeding stations

In Korea there are some fifty seed companies. Among them about ten companies have breeding station actively working on varietve breeding station actively working on varietal improvement. Traditionally they have worked exclusively on vegetable crops, because field crops have been under the responsibility of government institution in both varietal improvement and seed production/distribution. They have been very successful in developing superior hybrid varieties of major vegetable crops such as hot pepper, Chinese cabbage, radish and onion by exploitation of genetic sterility and/or self incompatibilite depending upon the crops. They have developed well-perfon-ning hybrids of waten-nelon, oriental melon, cucumber and squash. They have achieved partial success in practical utilisation of male sterility in carrot and onions. Korean seeds are, however, not competitive in crops such as tomato, common cabbage, muskmelon, early maturing onions, carrot, spinach and lettuce. That is due to small local market size discouraging investment (in such cases as tomato, common cabbage and musk melon), poor rouging in parental seed multiplication (in case of carrot), or unfavorable weather conditions for breeding and/or seed production (in such cases as carrot, onion, spinach and lettuce). In addition to the efforts to maintain the varietal superiority in the traditional vegetables, private seed companies allocate more resources to improve the competitiveness in this group of crops. For this purpose they are trying hard to enhance varietal performance and seed production efficience in nce and seed production efficience in the sites of breeding and seed production located either locally or abroad.

As mentioned above, private breeding stations have largely depended upon conventional methods such as male sterility and self incompatibilite in developing and producing hybrid seed. But they have now become more interested in molecular methods as a new and complementary breeding tool. Breeding have greatly contributed to diversification of production/supply season, improvement of land productivite and enhancement of quality of vegetables in Korea. But seed companies are now paying more attention to disease resistance of the crops, of which the size of international market is large. Major private breeding stations are actively participating in joint research projects, together with universities and public research institutes, which are funded by the Agricultural Research Promotion Center and Rural Development Administration.

Universities

There are some thirty universite departments solely of horticulture or of horticulture or combined with other related scientific fields throughout the country. But the faculty members were not in general very active in research due to the limited amount of research fund and heavy teaching load. The limited amount of fund was provided from RDA, Science and Technology Promotion Foundation, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Science and Technoof Education, and Ministry of Science and Technology. However, the situation has now become totally different since the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry began funding the research through the Agricultural Research Promotion Center. As already mentioned above, ARPC annually spend about 55 million US$ to support research and development projects in the field of agriculture, forestry and fishery. Since most of the projects are jointly constructed among universities, public institutes and private industries, it is not easy to correctly estimate how much is spent for the activities in horticultural area in the universities. It may yet be roughly said that about a quarter of the total budget is spent for researches in horticulture and that over two thirds of the horticulture portion is to support the research conducted in the universities. Consequently, capable university laboratories in the field of horticulture have become fully activated to conduct such projects.

Research projects of universities now cover practically all the national priority areas listed in the policy section of this article. Their activities are naturally more basic problem-oriented. Many faculty members are leading the wide-scoped large projects for solving specific problem areas. They now cooperate with specialists not only in agriculture, but also in other disciplines such as electronics and mechanical sciences to exploit all the technologies and knowledge available.he technologies and knowledge available.

Publications

Tables 1-2 and 2-1 to 2-3 provide some information conceming publication in the field of horticulture. Horticultural subjects are mostly published in three publications (Abstract, Horticulture World, and the Journal) of the Korean Society for Horticultural Science. Quite many papers are published in the Journals of Korean Societies for Breeding, Plant Pathology, Applied Entomology, Soil and Fertilizer etc. Many research results are presented and published through crop research group meeting and their publications. Among them are Korea Capsicum Research Cooperative, Korea Fruit Tree ResearchAssociation, Korea Floriculture Research Association and Korea Research Society for Protected Horticulture.

In tenns of annual number of publications per person, central institutions were found to be more productive than provincial institutes in the RDA system. This seems to be due partly to practically oriented nature of the projects and less experience of staff members of the provincial institutes. Apparently, seed companies are not very much interested in publishing their results. In the year of 1996, a total of 523 papers were presented in two meetings of the Korean Society for Horticultural Science. Out of them, 217 papers were on vegetables, while 118 and 188 papers were on fruit trees and ornamentals, respectively. Cultural techniques were the most respectively. Cultural techniques were the most popular issues among presentations, followed by breeding related subjects, propagation-nursery, postharvest and pests and disorders. Number of presented papers in 1996 was five times that in 1986. Such increase may be an indicator of the strengthened research capability of horticulture in Korea in the last decade.

Genetic resources

Table 6 shows the number of germplasm accessions of important horticultural crops, Among vegetable crops, hot pepper, Chinese cabbage, perilla, onion, waten-nelon, and melon are over one thousand. Apple, oriental pear, peach and grape are the fruit crops whose germplasm collection is larger than other crops. Among omamentals, tulip, rose, Chlorodendrom and chrysanthemum have the largest collection. The Korean Genebank is responsable for storing the seed-propagated materials, while crop research institutes are charged with keeping the vegetative materials. In addition, crop research institutes maintain, in their working collection, a large number of breeding lines or accessions of their interested crops. The Genebank is cooperating with many other national and international genebanks for germplasm exchange and joint expedition. They also maintain close relationship with many commodite research institutes including NHRI and some private institutes for characterization, evaluation and multiplication of the genetic resources. In general,cation of the genetic resources. In general, amount of seed per accession, and gerrninability and characterization/evaluation data are far below the satisfactory or standard level. Therefore, coordinated activities should be emphasized in the coming years.

Partnership

As frequently mentioned above many projects are jointly planned and implemented among scientiste of diverse disciplines belonging to universities, public research institutes and private industries. Private industry often contributes a part of the research fund, mostly in kind, and enjoys a priority in utilisation of the results produced from the projects. RDA institutions have advisory committees consisting of universite professons, growers and specialists from piivate industries. The committee is officially invited to meetings for planning and review. The members are also informally contacted by different levels of research staff for advices on specific issues. RDA institutions also have feedback system with extension people and policy makers in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

Another important type of partnership is cooperation with international agricultural institutes such as the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center in Taiwan, International Atomic Energy Agency in Austria, and International Potato Center in Peru. RDA-seconded scientiste are positioned in three international research centers and they liaison tnternational research centers and they liaison the cooperative activities between Korea and the respective centers. RDA's cooperation is extended to advanced laboratories in the United States, japan and Europe depending upon the research subjects. RDA offers positions of adjunct researcher to the specialist in the universities and industries. They are allowed to join RDA staff in all the activities and share the results. RDA also invites distinguished scientiste from other countries to become honorary research fellows. Honorary research fellows are funded to make short visits to Korea to give lectures, seminars and implementation of joint projects. Many universities have signed agreements with foreign counterparts on exchange of faculty members and students, and joint activities including research areas.

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