Due to the strong influence of nitrogen(N) on plant productivity, a vast amount of N fertilizers is used to maximize crop yield. Over-use of N fertilizers leads to severe pollution of the environment, especially the aquatic ecosystem, as well as reducing farmer's income. Growing of N-efficient cultivars is an important prerequisite for integrated nutrient management strategies in both low- and high-input agriculture. Taking maize as a sample crop, this paper reviews the response of plants to low N stress, the physiological processes which may control N-use efficiency in low-N input conditions, and the genetic and molecular biological aspects of N-use efficiency. Since the harvest index(HI) of modern cultivars is quite high, further improvement of these cultivars to adapt to low N soils should aim to increase their capacity to accumulate N at low N levels. To achieve this goal, establishment and maintenance of a large root system during the growth period may be essential. To reduce the cost of N and carbon for root growth, a strong response of lateral root growth to nitrate-rich patches may be desired. Furthermore, a large proportion of N accumulated in roots at early growth stages should be remobilized for grain growth in the late filling stage to increase N-utilization efficiency. Some QTLs and genes related to maize yield as well as root traits have been identified. However, their significance in improving maize NUE at low N inputs in the field need to be elucidated.

Iron is an important micronutrient for plants. Iron metabolism is a complex mechanism under a delicate balance. Iron metabolism represents two major problems for plants: deficiency as a consequence of solubility problems and toxicity due to excess solubility in anaerobic conditions. In the last few years, new genes have been discovered that influence iron uptake, transport and storage. Irrigated rice is exposed to high levels of $Fe^{II}$, normally rare in aerobic soil conditions. The implications of altering iron uptake rates and the effects of newly discovered genes are discussed.

The green revolution has significantly helped in increasing the food production. So far, various breeding methods have been exploited, besides them recombination DNA technology provides another approach for increasing the food production. By means of this technology the losses in food production incurred by various biotic and abiotic stresses can be effectively controlled. In most of the transgenic studies scientists have used antibiotic resistant genes as markers for easy selection of transformants but there are risks involved in use of GM foods. To make such foods safer and environment friendly we have discussed a novel strategy i.e. Cre-lox which involves site specific recombination. By means of Cre-lox the marker genes can be specifically removed once the selection of transformants is over. In addition, this strategy can be used to module the hybrid chromosomes, avoid gene silencing and incorporate single copy of a transgene for its higher expression.

Rice bran application just after transplanting has been increasingly practiced as an herbicide-substitute for organic rice production in Korea. However, this practice is frequently reported to be unsatisfactory in weed suppression. An experiment with five treatments that combines flooding depth, rice bran application dose, and herbicide treatment was done in the paddy field to evaluate whether rice bran application under deep flooding can lead to a successful weed control in compensation for the single practice of rice bran application. Rice bran was broadcasted on the flood water surface just after deep flooding of 8 to 10cm that was started at seven days after transplanting. In the shallow flooding plot without herbicide six weed species were recorded: Monochoria vaginalis, Echinochloa crus-galli, Ludvigia prostrate, Cyperus amuricus, Aneima keisak, and Bidens tripartite. Among the first four dominant weed species, deep flooding significantly suppressed the occurrence of Echinochloa crus-galli and Cyperus amuricus while did not suppress the occurrence of Monochoria vaginalis and Ludwigia prostrate. On the contrary, rice bran application under deep flooding suppressed significantly Monochoria vaginalis and Ludwigia prostrate while didn't exert an additional suppression of Echinochloa crus-galli and Cyperus amuricus compared to deep flooding alone. Rice bran application and deep flooding suppressed complimentarily all the six weed species to a satisfactory extent except for Monochoria vaginalis of which suppression efficacy was 31.9%. Deep flooding reduced the panicle number substantially by inhibiting the tiller production, increased the spikelet number per panicle slightly, and leaded to a lower rice grain yield compared to shallow flooding with herbicide. Rice bran application under deep flooding mitigated the panicle reduction due to deep flooding, increased the spikelets per panicle significantly, and thus produced even higher grain yield in the rice bran application of 2000kg $ha^{-1}$ as compared to the shallow flooding treatment with herbicide. In conclusion, this practice applying rice bran under deep flooding would be promising to be incorporated as an integral practice for an organic rice farming system.

A representative group of 38 improved basmati lines including maintainers of sterile lines were studied for genetic diversity utilizing Mahalanobis $D^2$ statistics. A wide diversity was observed having ten clusters with high intra- and inter-cluster distance. Heterosis was estimated utilizing the cytoplasmic male sterile lines from the clusters having high intra- and inter-cluster distance. Highly heterotic hybrids were obtained from the hybridization programme. Cross combinations IR68281A/Pusa 1235-95-73-1-1, IR68281A/RP 3644-41-9-5, Pusa 3A/UPR 2268-4-1, IR 68281A/Pusa Basmati-1, IR68281A/BTCE 10-98, and IR58025A/HKR 97-401 were found to be highly heterotic for grain yield/plant with other agronomic and quality traits. Additionally, a positive association of intra-cluster distance with heterosis was observed, which could be utilized as a guideline for predicting heterosis in basmati hybrid rice breeding program. Also, a positive association between inter-cluster distance and heterosis was observed.

Antibiotics used for suppressing Agrobacterium in plant transformation procedure might have negligible effects on plant tissues and regeneration. The effects of antibiotics on growth suppression of Agrobacterium and plant regeneration were investigated for enhancing Agrobacterium-mediated transformation using wheat mature embryos. Antibiotics tested, except carbenicillin, were able to suppress that embryos were coated with a layer of Agrobacterium cells in callus induction medium. Agrobacterium growth was suppressed minimally at 50 mg/l of timentin, while cefotaxime and clavamox were completely suppressed at relative high concentration of 250 mg/l. In the treatment of carbenicillin, initiation of growth suppression of Agrobacterium occurred at 750 mg/l of concentration because Agrobacterium KYRT1 contains the carbenicillin resistant gene. In Agrobacterium inoculation, effects of antibiotics were significantly different on the rate of callus induction and shoot formation. Almost embryos were induced calli at 50 mg/l of timentin whereas callus induction rate was achieved above 90% at 100 mg/l and 250 mg/l of cefotaxime and clavamox, respectively. Shoot formation rate was higher in the treatment of timentin than that of cefotaxime and clavamox at 500 mg/l of concentration, respectively. Timentin can be used as a good antibiotics in Agrobacterium-mediated wheat transformation.

Phylogenetic relationships in Korean watermelons were evaluated by genetic similarity coefficients using 15 SSR(simple sequence repeat), 14 SCAR(sequence characterized amplified region) and 14 CAPS(sequence characterized amplified region) markers. The SSR markers were selected from previously reported melon and watermelon SSRs through testing polymorphisms within a set of commercial $F_1$ varieties. The SCAR and CAPS markers were developed from polymorphic AFLP(amplified fragment length polymorphism) markers between inbred lines 'BN4001' and 'BN4002'. From the AFLP analysis, 105 polymorphic fragments were identified between the inbred lines using 1,440 primer combinations of EcoRI+CNNN and XbaI+ANNN. Based on the sequencing data of these polymorphic fragments, we synthesized sequence specific primer pairs and detected clear and reliable polymorphisms in 27 primer pairs by indels(insertion/deletion) or RFLP(restriction fragment length polymorphism). A total of 43 sequence-based PCR markers were obtained and polymorphic information content(PIC) was analyzed to measure the informativeness of each marker in watermelon varieties. The average PIC value of SCAR markers was 0.41, which was similar to that of SSR markers. Genetic diversity was also estimated by using these markers to assess the phylogenetic relationships among commercial varieties of watermelon. These markers differentiated 26 Korean watermelon varieties into two major phylogenetic groups, but this grouping was not significantly correlated with their morphological and physiological characteristics. The mean genetic similarity was 66% within the complete set of 26 commercial varieties. In addition, these sequence-based PCR markers were reliable and useful to identify cultivars and genotypes of watermelon.

Increasing genetic variability with mutagenic agents has been broadly employed in plant breeding because it has the potential to alter one or more desirable traits. In this study, a molecular analysis assessed by Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphisms(AFLPs) and a morphological analysis based on seedlings subjected to aluminum stress were compared. Also, an analysis of allelic frequencies was performed to observe unique alleles present in the pool. Genetic distances ranging from 0.448 to 0.953 were observed, suggesting that mutation inducing was effective in generating variability. The genetic distances based on morphological data ranged from 0(genotypes 22 and 23) to 30.38(genotypes 15 and 29). In the analysis of allelic frequency, 13 genotypes presented unique alleles, suggesting that mutation inducing was also targeting unique sites. Mutants with good performance under aluminum stress(9, 15, 18 and 27) did not form the same clusters when morphological and molecular analyses were compared, suggesting that different genomic regions may be responsible for their better performance.

Kinetin(KN) is an inducer of rice(Oryza sativa L.) defense/stress responses, as evidenced by the induction of inducible secondary metabolite and defense/stress protein markers in leaf. We show a novel light-dependent effect of KN-triggered defense stress responses in rice leaf. Leaf segments treated with KN(100 ${\mu}M$) show hypersensitive-like necrotic lesion formation only under continuous light illumination. Potent accumulation of two phytoalexins, sakuranetin and momilactone A(MoA) by KN that peaks at 48 h after treatment under continuous light is completely suppressed by incubation under continuous dark. Using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis we identified KN-induced changes in ribulose-1, 5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, energy- and pathogenesis-related proteins(OsPR class 5 and 10 members) by N-terminal amino acid sequencing and mass spectrometry. These changes were light-inducible and could not be observed in the dark(and control). Present results provide a new dimension(light modulation/regulation) to our finding that KN has a potential role in the rice plant self-defense mechanism.

Distributions of physiological inhibitors of a tau-type pumpkin glutathione S-transferase(CmGSTU3) have been investigated in different organs of pumpkin plants, including the onion bulb and water hyacinth root. Inhibitory effects were observed in alcoholic extracts of all plant parts, but the extracts prepared from the roots of either water hyacinth or pumpkin plant showed the highest effect on CmGSTU3 toward 1-chloro-2,4- dinitrobenzene(CDNB). Results of various chromatographies indicated that a number of inhibitory substances were present in the alcoholic extract of each plant organ. Some macromolecules in the plant extracts exhibited inhibitory effects; however, the extracts might contain a large number of unknown low-molecular-weight inhibitory substances. Some of the low-molecular-weight inhibitors in water hyacinth root extract showed characteristics fluoresce under UV light.