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The nationwide weed survey was conducted in arable land, paddy field, upland, orchard and pasture, over whole country of Korea during 3 years from 2013 to 2015. Also, these survey were conducted in order to determine a change of weed community and to identify a major dominant weed species, and problem weeds. Weeds of arable land were composed of 619 species belonging to 81 families. Weeds occurred in paddy field were 90 species belonging to 28 families, upland weeds were 375 species of 50 families, orchard weeds were 492 species of 63 families and pasture weeds 275 species of 52 families. Among total 81 families, the Asteraceae (15.5%) was the biggest family, followed by Poaceae (13.1%), Fabaceae (5.5%), Cyperaceae (5.2%), Polygonaceae (6.3%), respectively. And these weed species were composed of annual weeds of 209 species (33.8%), winter annual of 102 species (16.4%) and perennial weeds of 308 species (49.8%). Exotic weeds naturalized in Korea were investigated as 166 species. Weed flora in Korean cultivation area have been increased as much as 13 families and 186 species for 10 years compared to 2000~2004 weed survey result of 68 families and 433 species. The increment could be resulted from the change of weed population such as increase of the herbicide-resistant and the difference of investigation method.

Surveys of weed species on upland fields were conducted in Korea to investigate the occurrence of weed flora from April to May 2014 for winter crop fields and from July to August 2014 for summer crop fields. From the nation-wide survey, 375 weed species in 50 families were identified and classified to 162 annuals, 78 biennials and 135 perennials. Based on the occurrence ratio, the most weed species belonged to Compositae (73 species). 44 and 25 weed species belonged to Poaceae and Polygonaceae, respectively, and these 183 weed species in the most five families accounted for 49% of total weed occurrence. While 287 weed species in 45 families occurred in the winter crop fields, 339 weed species in 47 families occurred in summer crop fields. The most dominant weed species in Korean upland fields were Digitaria ciliaris, followed by Portulaca oleracea, Acalypha australis, Chenopodium album, Rorippa palustris etc. 129 weed species in 25 families were considered as exotic weeds. Based on the importance analysis, the highest value was C. album followed by Amaranthus lividus, Conyza canadensis etc. This information could be useful for estimation of future weed occurrence, weed population dynamics and establishment of weed control methods in upland fields of Korea.

The equilibrium moisture contents (EMC) in seeds of four Echinochloa (E. crus-galli var. crus-galli, E. crus-galli var, echinata, E. crus-galli var. praticola, E. esculenta) were measured at 20oC with equilibration over a series of lithium chloride solutions with relative humidities ranging from 0.11 to 0.8 to determine sorption isotherms and safe storage relative humidity. Standard seed sorption isotherm models i.e. modified Henderson, modified Chung-Pfost, modified Halsey, modified Oswin and Guggenheim-Anderson-deBoer (GAB) equations were adopted to evaluate the goodness of fit to sorption isotherms. This study indicated that EMC of seeds was significantly different in four Echinochloa species at various relative humidity. The modified Oswin equations for E. crus-galli var. crou-galli, E. crus-galli var, echinata, E. esculenta and GAB equation for E. crus-galli var. praticola were adequate models for the EMC data. Seeds of four Echinochloa species have monolayer moisture contents when stored at RH < 0.1. These results show that seed moisture isotherm model should be selected according to genetic variation.

This study was conducted in order to investigate the distribution pattern of weeds on upland crop field in northern Gyeonggi-do. The weeds were summarized as 201 taxa including 42 families, 129 genera, 178 species, 1 subspecies, 21 varieties and 1 form. One hundred and thirty one species were classified to annual plants, accounting for 65.1% and 70 species were classified to perennials, accounting for the rest of 34.9%. Compositae was dominant family (21%), followed by Gramineae (12%), Polygonaceae (7%) and Brassicaceae (5%). Among the weeds appearing in the fields of northern Gyeonggi-do, the invasive weeds were classified to 62 species in18 families. The most dominant weed species in the fields were Portulaca oleracea, followed by Echinochloa crus-galli, Amaranthus lividus. Detrended correspondence analysis for investigation of occurrence pattern of weeds by crops revealed the occurrence pattern of weed species in adlay field were different from those in other crop fields. This information could be useful for establishment of weed control methods in northern Gyeonggi-do.

The climate change affects the growth and development of weeds as well as the outbreak of weeds. Especially, the occurrences of problematic paddy weeds due to climate change might cause the difficulties in weed control. This study therefore, investigated the current dominance and distribution of paddy weeds. As a result of the study on paddy weeds in northern Gyeonggi-do, there were total of 65 taxonomy groups including 23 family, 41 genus, 57 species, 7 subspecies and 1 variety. Among all the plants, 46 species were annual plants and 16 were perennial plants. Echinochloa crus-galli was the highest in importance analysis and the followings were in order of Ludwigia prostrate and Lemna paucicostata. The similarity of different paddy weeds in different regions observed through TWINSPAN analysis was distinguished by Fimbristylis miliacea, Rotala indica and Cyperus flaccidus. Regional differences shown in CCA analysis using weed species and soil environment revealed that Gimpo-si and Namyangju-si has difference soil and weeds, which are features that distinguished them from other regions. In northern Gyeonggi-do the result of paddy weed research showed the interregional difference not in dominant weeds but in distribution species.

Korea is carrying out weed quarantine by plant quarantine regulations including heat-treatment method to prevent the influx of exotic weeds. In order to confirm suitability for current heat-treatment criteria and find field-applicable methods which can completely devitalize quarantine weed seeds, the conditions for heat- treatment with/without 40% relative humidity were studied with 9 species among quarantine weed seeds and one weed species similar to quarantine weed. Dry heat-treatments had been tested under various temperatures and time conditions. All seeds were dead at the conditions of 95 o C for 48 hours, 100 o C for 36 hours, 110 o C for 24 hours, 121 o C for 4 hours and 130 o C for 30 minutes. Heat-treatments at 40% relative humidity resulted in complete seed death at the conditions of 85 o C for 36 hours and 90 o C for 16 hours. The above results show that current heat- treatment criteria are not suitable for several quarantine weeds and these conditions could be applied as a quarantine method to prevent the influx of quarantine weeds along with agricultural imports. More specific conditions for heat tolerant species such as Picris echioides and heat susceptible species such as Cuscuta spp. are necessary and will improve plant quarantine process in devitalizing quarantine weed seeds with different heat tolerances.