Journal of Agricultural, Life and Environmental SciencesISSN:2233-8322(Print) 2508-870X(Online)강원대학교 농업생명과학대학 농업생명과학연구원

The use of biopesticides is regarded as an eco-friendly disease control measure in modern agriculture and is seen as a feasible replacement for chemical pesticides. Currently, South Korea has many regional microorganism culture centers that are operated with the support of the local governments. However, no in-depth investigation on the operational status and management of these centers has been performed. In this study, we surveyed and analyzed the operational status of 101 agricultural microorganism culture centers, nationwide. The results indicated that the academic majors of the managers of these centers tend to be unrelated to microorganisms, with very few managers possessing the appropriate academic background. The consequential lack of understanding of agricultural microorganisms has led to various problems in culture processes. Production of long-term storage constitutes a basic process for generating fundamental and foundational data for quality control; however, most of the centers did not produce stock cultures, citing sufficient supply of starter cultures. Additionally, although the centers considered culture media to be expensive, the majority did not have structured systems, such as for monitoring culture pH, propagation, and quality of culture media. Therefore, it can be concluded that adequate training is necessary for the managers of these culture centers and that a systematic management system must be implemented.