Wartime activities of the Vavilov Institute

Among the chronicles relating the heroism of the besieged Leningrad, there are pages dedicated to the deeds performed by the staff the world-famous All-Union Research Institute of Plant Industry (VIR, now the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources). With the beginning of the war, even before the city was surrounded by the Nazi troops, the government decided to evacuate a number of factories and institutes from Leningrad, including VIR, but the plan failed. Only in winter did the Institute start partial evacuation, although preparations had been going on for a long time. The largest and most important part of the collection was left behind in the besieged city. The remaining employees were forced to work under the hardest conditions of the siege, in unheated premises. In the harsh reality of the winter in 1941–1942, the daily bread rationing was cut down, and hunger raged in the city, killing tens of thousands of city residents, including VIR employees who kept the stored seeds and tubers untouched. The most difficult part was preserving the potato collection. In the spring of 1942, preparations were made for sowing to restore the viability of seeds and tubers in the fields of Leningrad’s suburban area under the fire from the enemy artillery. Only the heroic efforts of VIR’s staff helped to save the collection from destruction and loss of germination. This heroism cost more than 20 experts and scientists their lives. So, the most dangerous period for the Institute was overcome at such price. Immediately after the siege was lifted, a group of experts was sent to Leningrad from Krasnoufimsk to help with selecting seed accessions for urgent reproduction. Working under extreme physical exhaustion in frozen premises, without water or electricity, under continuous shelling, they saved, many at the cost of their own lives, the collection of cultivated plants and their wild relatives, the herbarium, and the scientific library for future generations

ROBERT E. REGEL (1867-1920) - HEAD OF THE BUREAU OF APPLIED BOTANY

The biographical data of Robert E. Regel, one of the Heads of the Bureau of Applied Botany, who played a significant role in its establishment and development in the early 20th century, are presented

On the anniversary of Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Olga Silvestrovna Afanasenko

In December 2023, the leading mycologist-phytopathologist of the Russian Federation, head of the laboratory of plant immunity to diseases of the All-Russian Research Institute of Plant Protection (VIZR), Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Olga Silvestrovna Afanasenko celebrates her anniversary. The main direction of O.S. Afanasenko’s work is a comprehensive study of the mechanisms of variability in populations of phytopathogenic fungi, race-forming processes and interorganismal genetics in the pathosystems “cereal crops - hemibiotrophic pathogens”. In cooperation with colleagues from VIR, as well as from specialized institutions of the Russian Federation and foreign countries, research is being carried out to identify genes for resistance of grain crops to the most harmful pathogens

Breeding value of european oat accessions in the environments of Kuban experiment station of VIR

Background. For the present-day oat breeding, the task is to develop adaptive cultivars with high yield potential, high quality of products, fairly early-ripening habit, and resistance to lodging and diseases. Breeding new cultivars with a complex of valuable characters, high yield, and high quality of products under varied environmental conditions requires well-studied source material. Selection of sources according to the basic economically useful traits is one of the main objectives in the study of the global diversity preserved in the oat collection.Results and conclusion. The article presents the results of studying the oat accessions from Western and Central European countries, preserved in the VIR collection, under the conditions of Kuban Experimental Station of VIR (Krasnodar Terr.). Evaluation of the accessions in the field was targeted at such crop characters as the duration of the growing season, resistance to lodging, and field resistance to rust diseases. A structural analysis was performed in the laboratory to measure the weight of 1000 grains, the number of spikelets and grains per panicle, grain weight per panicle and per plant, and percentage of grain hullness. As a result of a three-year comprehensive field study of the newest oat cultivars bred in Western Europe in the environments of Kuban Experimental Station of VIR, sources of traits useful for breeding were identified, such as lodging resistance, field resistance to crown rust, high yield structure components (1000 grain weight, grain weight per panicle, number of grains per panicle, grain productivity). When using source materials in oat breeding practice, in addition to economically important traits, special attention should be paid to grain size, since this character, according to our data, has the most significant correlation with the grain yield of a cultivar. The identified sources of traits valuable for breeding may be included in breeding programs of Krasnodar Territory and other regions of the Russian Federation

BREEDING FOR ANTIOXIDANT CONTENT IN GRAIN AS A PROMISING TREND IN OBTAINING HEALTHY FOOD PRODUCTS

According to the Food Security Doctrine of the Russian Federation, there are plans for the nearest future to expand the assortment of healthy food products for the country’s population, so a search for relevant food sources is needed. The substances that may aid to prevent a number of serious human diseases include antioxidants, while one of the important quality parameters in food products and their ingredients is their antioxidant activity. Today, the aggregate content of antioxidants and their antioxidant activity have been identified with sufficient accuracy for vegetables and fruits. At the same time, the whole cereal grain has been found to provide higher quantities of bound polyphenols than the equivalent portion of soft fruits or widely consumed vegetables. These compounds are available for metabolism in the large intestine, and thus can produce a beneficial effect on human health. Additionally, a case study of 30 different breakfast cereals has shown that the levels of polyphenols in an average portion of oat-based cereals (40 g) are matchable with those of vegetables or fruits. It is widely known that oat and barley grains have high nutritional value, contain unsaturated fatty acids, basic minerals, proteins and β-glucans (the highest levels among cereal crops), and are characterized by the presence of diverse chemicals with antioxidant properties. In recent years, research efforts have been started in a number of Western countries to analyze the content of antioxidants in the grain of various cereal crops. In today’s Russia, only a small number of works are dedicated to studying these important chemical compounds in oat and barley grain. It should be mentioned that, although cereal crops are recognized as one of the main components in human diet, the research conducted to determine their antioxidant activity has clearly been insufficient. In order to attract the attention of Russian plant scientists, plant breeders, plant physiologists, geneticists and biotechnologists, a survey of modern publications on this problem is presented

Gravitational Waves in Relativistic Theory of Gravitation

It is shown that, in the framework of Relativistic Theory of Gravitation with massive graviton, gravitational waves, due to the causality condition, do not bear negative energy flows.Comment: 4 page

RESEARCH ON MICROMYCETES IN OATS (AVENA SATIVA L.) UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF STUPINO DISTRICT, MOSCOW PROVINCE

Background. Fungal diseases are the main cause of the deterioration of grain quality and lower yield of cereals crops. Reduction of acreage, and, as a consequence, violation of crop rotation rules, oversaturation of fields with cereals, spring and summer droughts contribute to the mass emergence and widespreading of new obligate and facultative diseases in all regions of the country. Therefore, the search for a variety of donors and sources of sustainability is a vital task.Materials and methods. Materials engaged in the research were kernels of 41 oat accessions from the VIR collection of plant genetic resources, obtained in 2016–2018 in field crop rotations by the Genetic Diversity Research Department of ARHIBAN (Mikhnevo, Stupino District, Moscow Province). The specific diversity of micromycetes in grain was identified using Litvinov’s “wet chambers” technique and light microscopy.Results. The dominant pathocomplex of micromycetes in oat grain in Moscow Province was found to belong to the genera Alternaria (A. infectoria, A. tennuissima), Cladosporium (Cl. cladosporioides, Cl. herbarum) and Fusarium (F. avenaceum, F. culmorum, F. heterosporum, F. nivale var. nivale, F. oxysporum, F. poae, F. proliferatum, F. solani, F. sporotrichioides var. minus, and F. tricintum).Conclusion. The hulled cultivars ‘Bulanyi’ (VIR-15277, Russia, Moscow Prov.) and ‘Zakat’ (VIR-15384, Ukraine), and the naked cultivar Mestnyi (VIR-15290, UK) demonstrated the least contamination with pathogens: Fusarium fungi in these accessions were represented by one species – F. avenaceum

Numerical modelling of radiant energy extinction by water medium containing bubbles and particles of various natures

In the framework of the Mie theory, we developed a numerical model of weakly absorbing medium, containing particles having an arbitrary chemical composition. This model can be applied to the study of the extinction characteristics of the optical radiation by a water layer with gas bubbles or volume-shape particles. The results of the numerical experiment illustrate changes in optical properties of the water due to the presence of bubbles or solid particles. The work displays some calculations of the extinction efficiency factor, the extinction coefficient, and transmission function at visible wavelengths. The influences of concentration and sizes of gas bubbles on the extinction characteristics of optical radiation are illustrated. Features of the extinction of radiant energy are discussed as dependent on a size parameter and a complex index of refraction of scatterers