ISO/TC249 is the 249th Technical Committee (TC) established in 2009 in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to develop international standards for Traditional Chinese medicine (herbal medicines, acupuncture/moxibustion, and their terminology). Although the title of the TC is Traditional Chinese Medicine, it also includes Japanese Kampo medicines and Korean traditional medicine. For herbal medicines, standards are to be developed as pharmaceuticals, and health foods and supplements are excluded even if they use the same herbal materials. In addition, standards are not to be developed for individual herbal products. Over 100 international standards have already been developed, but more than half of them are related to herbal medicines/herbal products. ISO standards are voluntary standards for international trade. In herbal medicines which are pharmaceuticals, national standards such as pharmacopoeia standards already exist in several countries/regions, so international standards that encompass these standards are to be developed, and the developed standards rarely affect countries that already have domestic standards. In Japan, the Japan Liaison of Oriental Medicine (JLOM) is the mirror committee for TC249, and standards related to herbal medicines are developed through cooperation among manufacturers of herbal medicines, national institutes, and academia.

Angelica acutiloba, the source plant of the crude drug Angelicae acutilobae radix, has been cultivated throughout Japan for centuries. However, traditional outdoor seedling cultivation has disadvantages, such as the difficulty of securing the required number of high-quality seedlings unless the farmer has high skills and many years of experience, and the additional burden of digging up and selecting seedlings during the busy season in early spring. Using commercially available paper pots, we developed a seedling-raising technique for A. acutiloba, aiming to reduce the labor involved in growing and planting seedlings. From four experiments conducted over a four-year period, we demonstrated that 1) the optimal paper pot size is 3.0 cm in diameter and 15 cm in height, 2) the most suitable fertilization method is to mix fertilizer with fermented oil cake (N:P:K = 4:6:2) into the seedling soil at 200 mg/L of nitrogen content, 3) blue light is effective as additional lighting, and 4) when seedlings are grown under the above conditions for 14-22 weeks, the yield is equivalent to that of traditional seedling cultivation. Paper pot seedlings have the advantages that they can be planted mechanically while retaining the fine roots and moisture of seedling soil, allowing them to take root quickly after transplanting, and that the taproot develops straight so that it takes on a shape similar to that of seedlings produced conventionally.

The current work aims to clarify the effects of environmental conditions on the flower spikes morphology of Schizonepeta tenuifolia Briquet. Two types of S. tenuifolia (NK and TH) were grown at six sites in Japan. The percentage of florets in flower spikes (floret ratio) of NK was observed to correlate with August and September temperatures, with a lower floret ratio at higher temperatures. The flower spikes of TH had branches, and the number of branches tended to increase with the higher temperatures of August and September. Additionally, the floret ratio of TH was correlated with the number of branches in flower spikes, with a lower floret ratio as the number of branches increased. These results suggest that cooler conditions around flowering improve the quality of flower spikes.

In order to advance the production of Japanese Bupleurum Root (“Saiko”), it is important to identify unique differences in components between Japanese “Saiko” and the Chinese one. In this study, we analyzed the components of the essential oil prepared from the Japanese “Saiko” and the Chinese one according to the Japanese Pharmacopoeia Essential Oil Quantitative Method. By GC/MS, liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-QTOF/MS) and NMR, we identified a characteristic component, (2Z,9Z)-pentadecadiene-4,6-diyn-1-ol (PDD), preferentially in the Japanese “Saiko” with approximately 14 times higher presence than that in the Chinese one. The preparation and processing conditions of the roots of Bupleurum falcatum L. showed limited effect on the content of PDD. Further clarification of the pharmacological effects of PDD may add value to Japanese “Saiko”.

Although Glycyrrhizae radix is the most widely used crude drug in Japan, domestic cultivation of its source plant Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch. ex DC. has begun only recently, with small amounts currently being produced. With a view to reducing dependency on its importation from overseas, domestic cultivation has long been under consideration, but the native varieties preserved in Japan tend to be low in productivity and often do not meet the standards of the Japanese Pharmacopoeia for their glycyrrhizic acid content. In recent years, however, cultivars have been developed that are suitable for domestic cultivation. We newly developed a cultivar named ʻSUPACOR’, and evaluated its characteristics. In the pre-selection of ʻSUPACOR’, individuals expected to have a high glycyrrhizic acid content were selected using a simple method of measuring the yellowness of the cross-sectional area of the roots, allowing the new cultivar to be selected from 638 individuals with little effort. We then analyzed the characteristics of ʻSUPACOR’ through comparative cultivation trials with the native variety ʻHokunōshi-line’ and the registered cultivar ʻGlu-0010’. ʻSUPACOR’ showed significant advantages compared with ʻHokunōshi-line’ and ʻGlu-0010’ in terms of plant height, leaf length, leaflet width, inflorescence length, number of florets per inflorescence, pod width, root thickness, root dry weight, and glycyrrhizic acid content in roots. Likewise, differences were apparent in the intensity of anthocyanin coloring at the base of the stem, stem hair density, leaf waviness, withering period, and intensity of yellow coloring in cross sections of the root. This cultivar has excellent productivity and should be efficacious as a pharmaceutical raw material.