Development and authentication of Panax ginseng cv. Sunhong with high yield and multiple tolerance to heat damage, rusty roots and lodging

Abstract

Ginseng ( Panax ginseng ) has been used as a valuable medicinal plant in Asia, and the demand for ginseng production for health functional food is increasing worldwide after the COVID-19 crisis. Although a number of cultivars have been developed to increase ginseng production, none of them were widely cultivated in Korea because they could not resist various environmental stresses while being grown in one place for at least 4 years. To address this, Sunhong was developed as a ginseng cultivar with high yield and multiple stress tolerance by pure line selection. Sunhong showed high yield and heat tolerance comparable to Yunpoong, a representative high-yielding cultivar, and exhibited 1.4 times lower prevalence of rusty roots than Yunpoong, suggesting that Sunhong can keep its high yield and quality during long-term cultivation. In addition, distinct color and lodging resistance were expected to increase the convenience of cultivation. To supply pure seeds to farmers, we also established a reliable high-throughput authentication system for Sunhong and seven ginseng cultivars through genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) analysis. The GBS approach enabled to identify a sufficient number of informative SNPs in ginseng, a heterozygous and polyploid species. These results contribute to the improvement of yield, quality, and homogeneity, and therefore promote the ginseng industry. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13580-023-00526-x.

Top and Side Lighting Induce Morphophysiological Improvements in Korean Ginseng Sprouts (Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer) Grown from One-Year-Old Roots

“…Changing the lighting direction not only affects the morphology of plants, including shoot length; stem diameter; leaf size, number, and thickness; and flower bud formation and number, but also the plant physiology [45][46][47]. Apart from light factors, plant lodging also significantly affects the yield and quality of ginseng crops and makes harvesting them difficult [48]. Overall, selecting a suitable light environment, changing the ginseng morphology, reducing lodging loss, and increasing yield are the key points of ginseng cultivation.…”