• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.103-134
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• 1977

The physiological and biochemical role of potassium for upland crops according to recent research reports and the nutritional status of potassium in Korea were reviewed. Since physical and chemical characteristics of potassium ion are different from those of sodium, potassium can not completely be replaced by sodium and replacement must be limited to minimum possible functional area. Specific roles of potassium seem to keep fine structure of biological membranes such as thylacoid membrane of chloroplast in the most efficient form and to be allosteric effector and conformation controller of various enzymes principally in carbohydrate and protein metabolism. Potassium is essential to improve the efficiency of phoro- and oxidative- phosphorylation and involve deeply in all energy required metabolisms especially synthesis of organic matter and their translocation. Potassium has many important, physiological functions such as maintenance of osmotic pressure and optimum hydration of cell colloids, consequently uptake and translocation of water resulting in higher water use efficiency and of better subcellular environment for various physiological and biochemical activities. Potassium affects uptake and translocation of mineral nutrients and quality of products. potassium itself in products may become a quality criteria due to potassium essentiality for human beings. Potassium uptake is greatly decreased by low temperature and controlled by unknown feed back mechanism of potassium in plants. Thus the luxury absorption should be reconsidered. Total potassium content of upland soil in Korea is about 3% but the exchangeable one is about 0.3 me/100g soil. All upland crops require much potassium probably due to freezing and cold weather and also due to wet damage and drought caused by uneven rainfall pattern. In barley, potassium should be high at just before freezing and just after thawing and move into grain from heading for higher yield. Use efficiency of potassium was 27% for barley and 58% in old uplands, 46% in newly opened hilly lands for soybean. Soybean plant showed potassium deficiency symptom in various fields especially in newly opened hilly lands. Potassium criteria for normal growth appear 2% $K_2O$ and 1.0 K/(Ca+Mg) (content ratio) at flower bud initiation stage for soybean. Potassium requirement in plant was high in carrot, egg plant, chinese cabbage, red pepper, raddish and tomato. Potassium content in leaves was significantly correlated with yield in chinese cabbage. Sweet potato. greatly absorbed potassium subsequently affected potassium nutrition of the following crop. In the case of potassium deficiency, root showed the greatest difference in potassium content from that of normal indicating that deficiency damages root first. Potatoes and corn showed much higher potassium content in comparison with calcium and magnesium. Forage crops from ranges showed relatively high potassium content which was significantly and positively correlated with nitrogen, phosphorus and calcium content. Percentage of orchards (apple, pear, peach, grape, and orange) insufficient in potassium ranged from 16 to 25. The leaves and soils from the good apple and pear orchards showed higher potassium content than those from the poor ones. Critical ratio of $K_2O/(CaO+MgO)$ in mulberry leaves to escape from winter death of branch tip was 0.95. In the multiple croping system, exchangeable potassium in soils after one crop was affected by the previous crops and potassium uptake seemed to be related with soil organic matter providing soil moisture and aeration. Thus, the long term and quantitative investigation of various forms of potassium including total one are needed in relation to soil, weather and croping system. Potassium uptake and efficiency may be increased by topdressing, deep placement, slow-releasing or granular fertilizer application with the consideration of rainfall pattern. In all researches for nutritional explanation including potassium of crop yield reasonable and practicable nutritional indices will most easily be obtained through multifactor analysis.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.65 no.4
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• pp.377-385
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• 2020

Recently, wheat consumption has been increasing in Korea, requiring increased production. Nitrogen fertilization is a critical determinant in crop yield; therefore, it is necessary to optimize the nitrogen fertilization regime with current trends that emphasize the minimum impact of nitrogen fertilizer on the environment. In this study, both nondestructive spectral analysis using a hyperspectral camera and growth analysis were performed to determine the optimal N top-dressing rates after heading. The nitrogen application regimes consisted of three conditions according to the secondary top-dressing rate: N_4:3:0 (0 kg 10 a^-1), N_4:3:3 (2.73 kg 10 a^-1), and N_4:3:6 (5.46 kg 10 a^-1). Subsequently, growth and physiological investigations were performed at the jointing, heading, and ripening stages of wheat, and spectral investigations were conducted. On April 29, as the nitrogen fertilization rate was increased to N_4:3:3 and N_4:3:6, plant height and grain yield increased by 4% and 8%, and 8% and 52%, respectively, compared to those under N_4:3:0. Leaf area index and SPAD value also increased by 13% and 24%, and 32% and 43%, respectively. The R (red), G (green), and B (blue) of leaf color were lowered by 15, 11, and 4 in N_4:3:3 and 44, 34, and 18 in N_4:3:6, respectively, as compared to the control. Grain yield was the highest at high top-dressing (N_4:3:6), however, there was no difference between no top-dressing (N_4:3:0) and intermediat top-dressing (N_4:3:3). The reflectance analyzed using a hyperspectral camera showed a difference in the near-infrared (NIR) region on March 19, and on April 29, there was a difference both in the visible light region greater than 550 nm and the NIR region. Vegetation indices differed according to fertilization regime, except for the greenness index (GI). The results of this study showed that not only growth and physiological analysis but also spectral indices can be used to optimize the nitrogen top-dressing rate.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.49-70
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• 2011

The numerous efforts have been made in understanding generation and transportation mechanism of nonpoint source pollutants from agricultural areas. Also, the water quality degradation has been exacerbated over the years in many parts of Korea as well as other countries. Nonpoint source pollutants are transported into waterbodies with direct runoff and baseflow. It has been generally thought that groundwater quality is not that severe compared with surface water quality. However its impacts on groundwater in the vicinity of stream quality is not negligible in agricultural areas. The SWAT model has been widely used in hydrology and water quality studies worldwide because of its flexibilities and accuracies. The spatial property of each HRU, which is the basic computational element, is not presented. Thus, the SWAT HRU mapping module was developed in this study and was applied to the study watershed to evaluate recharge rate and $NO_3-N$ loads in groundwater. The $NO_3-N$ loads in groundwater on agricultural fields were higher than on forests because of commercial fertilizers and manure applied in agricultural fields. The $NO_3-N$ loads were different among various crops because of differences in crop nutrient uptake, amount of fertilizer applied, soil properties in the field. As shown in this study, the SWAT HRU mapping module can be efficiently used to evaluate the pollutant contribution via baseflow in agricultural watershed.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.52 no.11
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• pp.917-929
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• 2019

Denitrification in streams is of great importance because it is essential for amelioration of water quality and accurate estimation of $N_2O$ budgets. Denitrification is a major biological source or sink of $N_2O$, an important greenhouse gas, which is a multi-step respiratory process that converts nitrate ($NO_3{^-}$) to gaseous forms of nitrogen ($N_2$ or $N_2O$). In aquatic ecosystems, the complex interactions of water flooding condition, substrate supply, hydrodynamic and biogeochemical properties modulate the extent of multi-step reactions required for $N_2O$ flux. Although water flow in streambed and residence time affect reaction output, effects of a complex interaction of hydrodynamic, geomorphology and biogeochemical controls on the magnitude of denitrification in streams are still illusive. In this work, we built a two-dimensional water flow channel and measured $N_2O$ flux from channel sediment with different bed geomorphology by using static closed chambers. Two independent experiments were conducted with identical flume and geomorphology but sediment with differences in dissolved organic carbon (DOC). The experiment flume was a circulation channel through which the effluent flows back, and the size of it was $37m{\times}1.2m{\times}1m$. Five days before the experiment began, urea fertilizer (46% N) was added to sediment with the rate of $0.5kg\;N/m^2$. A sand dune (1 m length and 0.15 m height) was made at the middle of channel to simulate variations in microtopography. In high- DOC experiment, $N_2O$ flux increases in the direction of flow, while the highest flux ($14.6{\pm}8.40{\mu}g\;N_2O-N/m^2\;hr$) was measured in the slope on the back side of the sand dune. followed by decreases afterward. In contrast, low DOC sediment did not show the geomorphological variations. We found that even though topographic variation influenced $N_2O$ flux and chemical properties, this effect is highly constrained by carbon availability.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.9
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• pp.125-147
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• 1968

This experiment was carried out as a part of the studies on reasonable application of nitrogen in rice plant to determine: (I) Nitrogen absorption. and rooting of rice seedlings as affected by urea foliar application at late seedling stage (II) Effect of leaf prunning and foliar application of urea at late heading stage on the maturation and yield of rice (III) Effect of foliar application of urea and its time during the stage of ear formation on yield of rice plant. Results obtained are summarized as follows. Exp.I: Nitrogen absorption and rooting of rice seedlings as affected be urea foliar application at late seedling stage. 1 : The foliar application of urea plots$(T_{1},T_2)$ snowed mare N-content than non-urea foliar application plot(T0) at lane seedling stage, being significant among treatments and foliar application of urea seemed more effective in increasing the N-content of seedlings. and promoted root settlement and early growth alter the transplanting. 2 : The carbon contents of the plants of $T_1$, and $T_2$ at late seedling stage increased than T0, and the carbon contents. of $T_1$ and $T_2$ plots became higher in amount in proportion to the nitrogen absorption as compared with those of $T_0$. 3 : C/N ratio appeared significant among soil application plots($N_1, \;N_2$) and foliar application of urea plots ($T_1$, $T_2$ and $T_0$). C/N ratio was lower in case of increased amount of nitrogen. The higher contents of nitrogen and carbon and lower C/N ratio resulted in the increment of root numbers and root lengths. Exp.II: Effect of leaf prunning and foliar application of urea at late heading stage on the maturation and yield of rice. 1 : There was a highly significant decrease in the maturing rate by severe leaf prunning. In the mean time, significant increase in maturing rate was observed with urea foliar application and it was found the more frequent application the more effective for higher maturing rate with a moderate significance. A correlationship between the level of prunning and maturing rate was enumerated to 0.961 of correlation coefficient, which indicated an increased maturing rate by the increased number of remaining leaves. 2 : The 1.000 grain weight, grain weight and hulled rice yield increased by leaf prunning in order (plot a$A_1$, $A_3$, $A_2$ and $A_0$ were 89.8%, 89.4%, 87.8% and 87.5% respectively, showing the highest of rate in $A_1$ and $A_3$ in methods of ear fertilization and being highly significant between its treatment. 3 : 1000 grain weights were highly significant between time of application, showing a tendency of increase of weights with the time lagging until days before earings as that of maturing rates. High significance was recognized between methods of ear fertilization, showing the highest in $A_2$ 23.18 gr. 4 : Yields per $3.3m^2$ were not significant between time of ear fertilization, whereas were highly significant between methods of ear fertilization. Those of $A_1$, $A_3$, $A_2$ and $A_0$ were 1.486 kg, 1.491 kg, 1.381 kg and 1.328 kg, respectively, showing the highest in $A_1$ and $A_3$. 5 : Hulling ratios showed significant different between time of ear fertilization, showing the highest in $T_2$, whereas those of methods of ear fertilization were highly significant between its treatment, Those of $A_1$, $A_3$, $A_2$ and $A_0$ were 84.72%, 84.06%, 83.29%, and 82.56% respectively, showing the highest m $A_2$ and $A_3$ among others. 6 : Yields of hulled rice per $3.3m^2$ showed significant different between time of ear fertilization, showing the highest in $T_1$ 1.192 kg. Whereas, those were highly significant between methods of ear fertilization. Those of $A_1$, $A_3$, $A_2$ and $A_0$ were 1.259 kg, 1.254 kg, 1.149 kg and 1.095 kg, respectively, showing the highest in $A_1$ and $A_2$. 7 : Contents of nitrogen on rice plant increased in case of nitrogen application as ear fertilizer and showed that the case of urea foliar application was more effective than that of soil application, showing the increased nitrogen content of rice plant was accompanied by carbon content.