Growth Characteristics and Volatile Oil Content of Perilla frutescens var. japonica Hara

Fifty two perilla accessions collected in Korea were analyzed to clarify volatile oil compositions and to select whether low of perillaketone or absent for use of base data in developing vegetable perilla varieties and examined their growth characters. Average days to flowering was 125 days, culm length was 162 cm, number of panicles per plant was 37, pods per panicle was 37, panicle length was 8cm and thousand kernel weight was 2.5 g. Very low correlation coefficient between growth characters and 52 accession sites indicate that there were not much differences in growth characters among collection sites. Perilla ketone was over 94% in total volatile oil composition, which suggested only one chemotype is existed in perilla cultivated in Korea. Volatile oil contents were not much different among accessions before flowering. The lowest volatile oil contents were observed in Yangyang 7.2 mg/g and Jeongsun2 7.48 mg/g, which will be valuable sources for developing low perillaketone types.