On December 16, KoAT announced that it was “laying the groundwork” to disseminate new varieties through disease-free seedlings produced using tissue cultures.
This method propagates pest- and disease-free plant material in a sterile environment, allowing for the mass production of high-quality seedlings over a relatively short period.
The agency said the technology was particularly useful for vegetatively propagated crops grown from stems or roots rather than seeds, and that it played an important role in ensuring stable cultivation and improving crop quality.
Throughout this year, KoAT supplied a total of 1.82 million disease-free seedlings across 21 varieties of eight crops — such as sweet potatoes, medicinal plants and apple rootstocks.
This represented a 3.4 per cent increase from the previous year, reflecting a growing on-farm uptake of tissue culture-based planting materials.
Moving forward, KoAT plans to produce and distribute 1.85 million disease-free seedlings in 2026, including 900,000 sweet potato plants, 870,000 medicinal crop plants and 80,000 fruit plants.
The agency aims to further strengthen the link between demonstration trials and commercial rollout to ensure new varieties reach farmers more quickly.
“The distribution of tissue culture-based disease-free seedlings is a key means of accelerating the establishment of domestically developed new varieties in the field… We will continue to provide support so that this leads to increased farm income and enhanced competitiveness of the seed industry,” said President Ahn Ho-geun, president of KoAT.
Accelerating variety production
KoAT will steadily producing and supplying disease-free seedlings, focusing on varieties developed by the Rural Development Administration to reduce cultivation risks and improve overall production for farmers.
This approach aims to strengthen farmers’ competitiveness.
Sweet potato crops are a key focus area with KoAT operating a pre-emptive propagation system designed to speed up the market entry of new varieties.
The agency is working with breeding institutions to multiply disease-free seedlings even before a variety is formally submitted for registration.
Furthermore, this allows distribution to be brought forward by more than a year.
Through this model, a new sweet potato variety developed by the National Institute of Crop Science, Mokpo-127, is scheduled to be distributed from 2027.
Fruits and medicinal crops
Another focus area was fruit production, particularly apple rootstocks, to support long-term orchard productivity.
KoAT said it was aiming to maintain stable production and supply of disease-free seedlings.
The agency is also expanding tissue culture-based propagation in medicinal crops.
Licorice varieties Wongam and Dagam are currently undergoing their first year of demonstration cultivation, while Atractylodes varieties Wipung and Wigang are being mass-produced using tissue culture techniques.
Atractylodes are set to enter demonstration trials from 2026, with full-scale distribution to follow based on performance results.
