Evaluation of functional properties of the chili pepper varieties 'Rocot' (C. pubescens) and 'Botankoshou' (C. annuum L.), which are suitable for growing in cool areas. The fruit of 'Botankosho' shows a low capsaicinoid concentration at the same carotenoid concentration as 'Kyonami' which is one of the sweet pepper varieties. The immature fruit of 'Botankosho' shows higher total phenolics content and antioxidative than mature fruit of the same variety. These plants also show wide variations among strains with regard to total phenolic concentrations and antioxidative ability. The mature fruit of the strain BK-4 and the immature fruit of the strain BK-2 show higher GABA concentrations than comparable varieties. 'Rocot' shows wide variation in capsaicinoid concentrations and higher content than 'Takanotsume' which is a well-known pungent variety that is popular in Japan. The mature fruit shows higher carotenoid concentrations than 'Shishitou' and 'Takanotsume'. The mature fruit also show a higher total phenolic concentration than comparable varieties, but the same GABA concentrations as comparable varieties. Some strains of 'Botankosho' and 'Rocoto' show higher concentrations of functional properties and show wide variation among strain. Therefore, we expect to use 'Botankosho' and 'Rocoto' to breed new varieties for cool areas, which add to the functional properties.

Capsicum frutescens is known as a highly pungent chili pepper species, but an accession of C. frutescens showed very low capsaicinoid content. This few-pungent trait is novel and unique to 'S3212' in C. frutescens. To investigate the inheritance of the few-pungent trait, segregation of capsaicinoid content in F 2 and backcross populations (BC 1 ) crossed with high pungent C. chinense 'S3010' were observed. The segregation ratio indicated that fewpungency was controlled by a single recessive gene designated as the cf gene. Isolocus test between cf locus and C locus controlling capsaicinoid production was carried out using cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence (CAPS) marker SCY-800 linked to the C locus. CAPS pattern and few-pungency were not related, so the cf locus is different from the C locus. The single cf gene controlling few-pungency found in this study is expected to be used to develop new cultivars stable in few-pungency.

Northern corn leaf blight disease (NCLB) is a foliar disease of corn (Zea mays L.) caused by Exserohilum turcicum (Pass.). The Ht1, Ht2 and HtN1 genes in corn were found to control NCLB resistant traits. There has been an ongoing effort to identify various types of molecular markers associated with these genes in order to use them in marker-assisted selections. The objective of this study was to identify Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) markers which are associated with the Ht1 resistant gene. Ninety-three SNP markers were found in Ht1 regions, which are located on chromosome 2. Five SNP primers (MZSNP-0055106, MZSNP-0065744, MZSNP-0070164, MZSNP-0063922, MZSNP-0073150) showed polymorphism between susceptible and resistant lines. The Chi-square test of genotypic data of 184 F2 plants (NT58WS6#4 x ChallengerS6-1) amplified by five markers fit a 1:2:1 ratio with Chi-square values of 0.82, 1.08, 1.08, 0.64 and 0.64 respectively. These 5 SNP primers may be useful as molecular markers for NCLB resistance in sweet corn.