• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.336-352
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• 1998

The horticultural seed industry has made great progress in the last fifty years of its history after the independence of this country. The industry has accomplished self-sufficiency in major vegetable seeds and has even gained international competitive edge in certain crop seeds, particularly in hybrid cultivar development. However, the industry is facing a crisis at present coming from excessive competition among the domestic seed companies as well as the foreign currency crisis of the country. Several major seed companies have already been acquired by multinational corporations. Many people in the country as well as agriculturists are concerned about this situation. Although it is true that the industry is undergoing hard times, this crisis can be turned into a chance for making new progress depending on the joint efforts of the groups responsible, i.e., private companies, public institutions, and policy makers. Therefore, we have to turn this crisis into an opportunity for self-reform and progress. We should not be discouraged or give up. We Propose some ideas for the Progress of the seed industry. Public institutions and policy makers should do such things in cooperation as 1) training human resources for future breeders, 2) securing a wide range of genetic resources and improvement of the management system, 3) basic science research including biotechnology, 4) releasing breeding stocks from germplasm enhancement through use of exotic accessions, 5) support for breeding region- or use-specific cultivars, and 6) collection of foreign agricultural information for breeding cultivars for overseas markets. Eventually the responsible group for the final development of commercial cultivars, production, sales and management is private companies. Therefore, private companies also should have to do their best to develop competitive cultivars with a missionary spirit and endeavor for both domestic and overseas markets in cooperation with public institutions. Management based on competition, professionalism and rationalism is also urged. We are going to conclude with optimism that we can make a new vault of progress once the private and public sectors closely cooperate for the development of Korean horticultural seed industry by overcoming this crisis.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.278-284
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• 2023

Recently, a closed-type plant factory has been receiving attention as a advanced agricultural method. It has diverse advantages such as climate-independence, high productivity and stable year-round production. However, high energy cost caused by environmental control system is considered as a challenges of a closed-type plant factory. In order to reduce the energy cost, investigation about energy load which is directly connected to energy consumption needs to be conducted. In this study, energy load changes of a plant factory have been analytically analyzed according to the environmental changes. The target plant factory was a lettuce growing container farm. Firstly, the impact of photoperiod, set temperature and relative humidity change were examined. Under the climate condition of Daejeon in South Korea, increase of photoperiod and set temperature rose a yearly energy demand of a container farm. However, increase of set relative humidity decreased a yearly energy demand. Secondly, the climate environment effect was compared by investigating the energy demand under 9 different climate conditions. As a result, the difference between maximum and minimum value of the yearly energy demand showed 21.7%. Lastly, sensitivity analysis of each parameter (photoperiod, set temperature and relative humidity) has been suggested under 3 different climate conditions. The ratio of heating and cooling demand was varied depending on the climate, so the effect of each parameter became different.