• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.175-183
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• 2016

BACKGROUND: There's a long rainy season during the Summer in Northeast Asia, including Korea. Heavy rainfall during this season causes harm to tree's root, and damped injury in the pear has been continuously reported. Pear Research Institute is breeding damp resistant rootstocks and investigating their mechanisms to relieve damped damages in the pear.METHODS AND RESULTS: Seedlings of Pyrus betulaefolia and P. calleryana were divided into two groups: control and damped, respectively. Damped group was treated by constant irrigation for 77 days and control group was maintained to keep the soil moisture pressure between 0 and -10 kPa. After the treatment, we analysed trees' growth rate, chlorophyll content, amino acids and total phenolic compounds. As a result, P. betulaefolia was sensitive to damped treatment while P. calleryana did not have significant differences between the control and damped treatment. It was observed that total contents for phenolic compounds were dramatically increased in P. betulaefolia while trees' growth rate, chlorophyll b and general amino acid contents were lowered by damping treatment.CONCLUSION: In some pear cultivars, growth habit is suppressed by damped damage. Pyrus calleryana displayed tolerances to damped damage in growth rate and some organic compound contents compared to P. betulaefolia. So we recommend to exploit P. calleryana as a pear rootstock rather than using P. betulaefolia.