高麗人蔘의 育種可能性 診斷

Surveys on the Possibilities of Ginseng Breeding

Until a few decades ago when ginseng was grown only on limited area and by a small number of grower, breeding of this crop was not regarded as an important or an urgent matter in this country. In the last decade or so, however, the ginseng acreage and the number of growers have increased tremendously, almost covering the entire country. Ginseng and its products have now become one of the major export commodities among the agricultural products, their extort amount having been targeted at more than one hundred million dollars in early 1980s. Despite the increase in acreage and expansion of growing regions, breeding of this plant has hardly been carried out so far, and a single variety has been grown across the country. Diversified varieties of good yield, resistant to diseases, and adapted for each region of ecological differences should have been produced, thus protecting the growers from hazards and risks as well as enabling them to attain high yield and low production cost. This paper reports the detailed descriptions of the methods on the separation and selection of useful variants from the existing ginseng population as well as the surveys on the possibilities of applying other breeding methods in the improvement of ginseng variety.