• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.470-477
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• 2021

Amsonia ellipotica (Thumb.) Roem. & Schult. has less than 10 native places nationwide and is evaluated as an endangered species (EN) on the Korean Red List, so systematic breeding and cultivation methods are required. This study was carried out to establish an effective method for seedling production in A. elliopotica that can be developed as a genetic resource conservation and new ornamental material. This experiment was performed by varying the seedling production container (72, 105 and 128 cell trays), number of seeds sown in a cell (1, 2, and 4 per cell), soil type [horticultural soil and neutralized peat-moss: perlite mixed in 3:1, 4:1 (v:v)], additional fertilizer concentrations (0, 250, 500 and 1000 mg/L) and shading degrees (0, 55 and 75%). As a result of the study, growth increased with the increased in measuring capacity per cell of sowing container. According to number of seeding growth, sowing one seed per cell was the best. Seedling growth increased as the treatment concentrations increased, higher growth was in 1000 mg/L. On the other hand, during the shading treatment, growth significantly decreased regardless of shading degrees.

• Journal of Practical Agriculture & Fisheries Research
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.137-150
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• 2010

Traditionally, like many people in mountain region of the Himalaya, the Lwang communities depend on mix of subsistence agriculture, animal husbandry, and seasonal migrant labor for their livelihoods. These traditional systems are characterized by low productivity, diverse use of available natural resources (largely for home consumption), limited markets, and some aversion for innovation. The potential to generate wealth through commerce has largely been untapped by these mountain residents and thus is undervalued in local and national economies. Introduction of organic tea farming is a part of Lwang community's several initiatives to break the vicious poverty cycle Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP) played facilitating roles in all their efforts since beginning. In five years, the tea plantation emerged as a new means for secured a livelihood. This study aims to analyze the current practices in tea farming both in terms of farm management and soil nutrient status(technical) and the prosperity of the tea farmers (social). The technical aspect covers the soil and tea leaf analysis of various nutrients contents in the soil and tea leaf. Originally, the technical aspect of the study was not planned but later during the consultation with the advisor it was taken into consideration which added value to the research study. The sample were collected from different locations and analyzed on the field itself. The other part of the study i.e. the social aspect was done through questionnaire survey and focus group discussion. the tea farming provided them not only a new opportunity but also earned an identity in the region. This initiative was undertaken as a piloting measure. Now that the tea is in production with processing unit established locally, more serious consideration has to be given for better yield and economic prosperity. This research finding will help the community to analyze their efforts and make correction measures in tea garden management and application of fertilizer. It is also expected to fill up the gaps of knowledge and information required to reduce economic stresses and enhance capacity of farmers to make the tea farming a sustainable and beneficial business. The findings are expected to Sustainability of organic tea farming has direct impacts on biodiversity conservation compared to the other traditional farming practices that are more resource intensive. The study will also contribute to identify key action points required for reducing poverty while conserving environment and enhancing livelihoods

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.435-443
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• 2012

This study investigated soil carbon storage and microbial activities influenced by different management practices in rice paddies and pastures. Soils under a single-crop farming of rice (CON) and rice-Italian ryegrass rotation farming (IRG) were compared in Jangheung, Jeollanam-do, Seocheon and Cheonan, Chungcheongnam-do. Soils from pastures were analyzed to investigate the effect of duration period (P1, P2, P3) in Namwon, Jeollabuk-do and Seosan, Chungcheongnam-do. In rice paddy, total and particulate carbon (PC) concentrations in the IRG soils were significantly higher than those in the CON soils both in Jangheung and Seocheon where the IRG has been established for three years, whereas carbon concentrations were not significantly different in Cheonan where IRG planting history is only one year. In rice paddy soils, PC was suggested as an early indicator to monitor changes in soil carbon storage followed by adopting different management practices. In pasture, total and PC concentrations increased with duration period especially in the 0-5 cm soils. Contrary to the rice paddy soils, the magnitude of change in PC concentration is not as great as that in total carbon concentration, implying that there is a need to develop a new early indicator other than PC using different fractionation scheme. The soil carbon storage in pasture also increased with years since establishment and the increasing rate was significantly greater in the early stage (0-5 yrs) than the later one (> 5 yrs). Microbial activities measured from fluorescein diacetate (FDA) hydrolysis analysis were significantly lower in the IRG soils than CON soils, whereas no difference was observed in the pastures of different ages. This shows that FDA activity is not a sensitive indicator to differentiate soil qualities influenced by management practices if it is used by itself.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.86-94
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• 1991

Volcanic ash soils were classified as Andepts, a suborder of the Inceptisols in Soil Taxonomy. Increased knowledge on the volcanic ash soils necessitated and facilitated considerable improvement in this system. As a result, the new Order of Andisols was incorporated in the 1990 edition of the Keys to Soil Taxonomy. The central concept of an Andisol is that of a soil developing in volcanic ejecta, and/or in volcaniclastic materials, whose colloidal fractions are dominated by short-range-order minerals or Al-humus complexes. Andic propertis of volcanic ash soil in Cheju Island were investigated. For this study, soils of toposequence distributed along the southern slope of Mt. Halla, and the major soil groups such as dark brown soils, very dark brown soils, black soils, and brown forest soils were collected and analyzed for Al, Fe and Si extracted with solutions of pyrophosphate, dithionite-citrate. and oxalate respectively. Weolpyeong and Yongheung soils developed on the lower elevations contain only small amounts of allophane and Al-and Fe-humus complexes. For other soils, allophane content decrease with elevation and increaes with soil depth,whereas Al-humus complexes increase with elevation and decrease with soil depth. Substantial amount of allophane and ferrihydrite are found in all horizons of Ora and Ara soils developed on 150-300m elevations and of Noro and Jeogag soils developed on cinder cones. In the A horizons of Pyeongdae, Tosan and Heugag soils developed on the higher elevations, Al-humus complexes are dominant form of Al reflecting low pH and high organic matter content. However, lower horizons are dominated by allophane.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.342-356
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• 1992

Kinetic studies using stirred-flow methods were conducted with the Luisiana soil at three pH levels(pH 5, 6.5, and 8) and three temperature levels(10, 25, and $40^{\circ}C$) to explore effects on the rate of silica retention and release and to find out reaction mechanisms. In this study the maximum silica retention could not be obtained for long enough experimental time. The silica sorption isorption was C type fitted well to Freundlich equation. The pH of the soil suspension increased by the silica release process at low pH treatments(pH 5 and 6.5), while decreased at high pH treatment(pH 8). From the above findings It can be deduced that the mechanism of silica retention is a multilayer forming process to change the ligand form depending on pH condition. In the proposed mechanism the sorbed silica provide new binding sites for additional sorption of silica, while the activation energy for the formation of subsequent layers increases correspondingly. The silica retention and release process were well described by first-order and parabolic diffusion equation. However, clear interpretation for silica sorption mechanism using these equations could not be made. The validity of the fraction term (Fa and Fd) included in first-order and parabolic diffusion equation requires further examinations because the temperature effect on apparent rate constant shows no constant trends among temperature treatments, while there was a good trend in Elovich and modified Freundlich equation where the fraction term was not included.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.1173-1178
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• 2012

Water competition among domestic, industrial and agricultural sectors has been gradually heightened recently in Korea as the lack of water supply is expected in the near future. About 46% of nation's water use is consumed in paddy farming to produce rice. And the conservation of water resource and quality in agricultural sector is a pending issue in the nation's long term water management plan. New paddy rice farming techniques that use significantly less irrigation water are urgently required. System of Rice Intensification (SRI) that is now well known to produce more rice with less water consumption has not been tried in Korea yet. And environmental effect of SRI on greenhouse gases (GHGs) has not been well investigated. The objective of this study was to measure the effect of SRI on GHGs as well as water use and rice yield in a Korean paddy condition. Three experimental runoff plots $5{\times}15m$ in size were prepared at an existing paddy field. Runoff, GHGs emission and water quality were measured during the 2011 growing seasons while a Japonica rice variety was cultivated. Rice plants grew better and healthier in SRI plots than in continuously flooded (CF) and intermittently drained (ID) plots. Rice yield from SRI plots increased 112.8 (ID)~116.1 (CF)% compared with CF and ID plots. Irrigation requirement of SRI plots compared to CF plot reduced by 52.6% and ID plot reduced by 62.0%, meaning that about 37.9~47.4% of irrigation water could be saved. GHGs emission from SRI plots reduced by 71.8% compared to that from CF plot and by 18.4% compared to that from ID plot, meaning that SRI could help contribute to ease the greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere. It was believed that SRI is a promising paddy farming technique that could increase rice yield, and reduce irrigation water requirement and GHGs emission not just in Korea but also other rice farming countries all over the world. However, it was recommended that long term studies under different conditions including rice variety, soil texture, water source, climate need to be conducted for reliable data for the development of environmental policies related to GHGs emission control and management.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.283-295
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• 1979

A new Farmland Expansion and Development Promotion Law was enacted in 1975. This law authorizes the Government to undertake development within a declared "reclamation area", wherever the land owners are unable to do so. In order to give additional impetus to conversion of waste hilly land into productive farmland, these hilly land development projects were conducted as large scale scheme which include soil fertility improvements such as the application of lime and phosphate. Farmland Expansion and Development Promotion Corps has attempted to undertake annual farm surveys in order to obtain some information about hilly land agriculture and farming operations within the reclamation project areas since 1976. As survey data accumulates, more and more clear picture of hilly land farming come to appear and enable us to conduct in-depth study. Effects of such upland reclamation include converting of previously unproductive slopeland into cultivable farmland for lucrative and commercial farming or food production. Furthermore, idle or marginal resources such as farm labor, equipment and compost would be fully employed. Socio-economic effects would include increases in land value and attitude change of farmers. On the other hand the preservation of natural environments might be damaged to the some extend by the projects. As shown in Table 7, the average farm size increased from 3,156 pyeong($3.3m^2$) to 5,562 pyeong, a 76.2% increase. The proportion of small farms with less than I ha dropped from 59.8% to 34.4%, but that of the large farms over 2 ha rose from 13.1% to 32.0% (See Table 8). The survey results indicate that as the farming on reclaimed uplands become time-honored, the acreage devoted for food crop production decreases against the economic crop growing acreage (see Table 6). For example, in the case of uplands reclaimed in 1972, the ratio of food crop acreages decreased from 99.7% in 1972 to 62.5% in 1977, whereas that of economic crop acreages increased from 0.3% in 1972 to 37.5% in 1977. The government used to actively encourage the farmers to carry out food crop production in the reclaimed upland targting toward the realization of self-sufficiency in food grains. It is, however, apparent that the farmers did hardly take the government advises as far as their economic interest were concerned. Yield per 10a. of various crops from the reclaimed uplands by year were surveyed as seen in Table 12. On the average, barley production in the reclaimed areas achieved 83.3% of the average unit yield from the existing upland in its 5 th year. Soybean yields showed a modest increase from 64% in the first year to 95%, in the 5 th year. In contrast, economic crops such as red pepper, totacco and radish achieved their maximum target yields in 3 years from starting to cultivate on the reclaimed farms. In order to test the post economic viability, an economic analysis was performed for each of selected subprojects on the basis of the data obtained through survey. The average actual internal economic rate of return on upland reclamation investments was found to be 20.3% which exceeded other types of projects of land and water development such as tidal land reclamation, irrigation or paddy rearrangement. The actual IRRs of subcategories of upland reclamation projects varied from 17.9% to 21.4% depending upon the kinds of cropping system adopted in each reclaimed areas such as food, economic, fruit or forage crops.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.123-135
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• 2006

Spatial variability and distribution map of soil properties and the relationships between soil properties and crop yields are not well characterized in agroecosystems that have been land leveled to facilitate more cultivation of the new reclaimed sloping highland. Potato, onion, carrot, Chinese cabbage and radish were grown on the coarse sandy loam soil in 2004. Soil moisture content, soil penetration resistance and crop yield were sampled in the $10m{\times}50m$ field consisted of five plots. Sampling sites of each cultivation plot were 33 for the soil moisture, 11 for the soil penetration and 33 for the crop yield. The results of semivariance analysis, most of models were shown spherical equation. The significant ranges of each spatial variability model for the soil moisture, soil penetration and crop yield were broad as 33-35 meters in the potato cultivation plot, and that in the Chinese cabbage cultivation plot was narrow as 5-6 meters. The coefficient of variances (C.V.) of moisture, penetration and yield were various from 14 to 59 percents in five cultivation plots. The highest C.V. of potato yield was 59 percents, and that of the radish cultivation plot was as low as 14 percents. The required sample numbers for the determination of soil moisture content, soil penetration resistance and crop yield with error 10% at 0.05 significant level were ranged 8-40 for soil moisture, 7-25 for soil penetration and 424-4,678 for crop yield. The variogram and distribution map by kriging described field characteristics well so that the spatial variability would be useful for soil management for better efficiency and precision agriculture in the reclaimed highland.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.415-423
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• 2010

Pore network models are useful tools to investigate soil pore geometry. These models provide quantitative information of pore geometry from 3D images. This study presents a pore network model to quantify pore structure and hydraulic characteristics. The objectives of this work were to apply the pore network model to characterize pore structure from large images to quantify pore structure, calculate water retention and hydraulic conductivity properties from a three dimensional soil image, and to combine measured hydraulic properties from experiments with calculated hydraulic properties from image. Soil samples were taken from a site located at the Baltimore science center, which is located inside of the city. Undisturbed columns were taken from the site and scanned with a computer tomographer at resolutions of 22 ${\mu}m$. Pore networks were extracted by medial-axis transformation and were used to measure pore geometry from one of the scanned samples. Water retention and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity values were calculated from the soil image. Properties of soil bulk density, water retention and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity were measured from three replicates of scanned soil samples. 3D image analysis provided accurate detailed pore properties such as individual pore volumes, pore length, and tortuosity of all pores. These data made possible to calculate accurate estimations of water retention and hydraulic conductivity. Combination of the calculated and measured hydraulic properties gave more accurate information on pore sizes over wider range than measured or calculated data alone. We could conclude that the hydraulic property computed from soil images and laboratory measurements can describe a full structure of intra- and inter-aggregate pores in soil.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.407-414
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• 2010

Until now, the pore size distribution, PSD, of soil profile has been calculated from soil moisture characteristic data by water release method or mercury porosimetry using the capillary rise equation. But the current methods are often difficult to use and time consuming. Thus, in this work, theoretical framework for an easy and fast technique was suggested to estimate the PSD from unsaturated hydraulic conductivity data in an undisturbed field soil profile. In this study, unsaturated hydraulic conductivity data were collected and simulated by the variation of soil parameters in the given boundary conditions (Brooks and Corey soil parameters, ${\alpha}_{BC}=1-5L^{-1}$, b = 1 - 10; van Genuchten soil parameters, ${\alpha}_{VG}=0.001-1.0L^{-1}$, m = 0.1 - 0.9). Then, $K_s$ (1.0 cm $h^{-1})$ was used as the fixed input parameter for the simulation of each models. The PSDs were estimated from the collected K(h) data by model simulation. In the simulation of Brooks-Corey parameter, the saturated hydraulic conductivity, $K_s$, played a role of scaling factor for unsaturated hydraulic conductivity, K(h) Changes of parameter b explained the shape of PSD curve of soil intimately, and a ${\alpha}_{BC}$ affected on the sensitivity of PSD curve. In the case of van Genuchten model, $K_s$ and ${\alpha}_{VG}$ played the role of scaling factor for a vertical axis and a horizontal axis, respectively. Parameter m described the shape of PSD curve and K(h) systematically. This study suggests that the new theoretical technique can be applied to the in situ prediction of PSD in undisturbed field soil.