The man standing on the globe

The forthcoming 134th birthday of Nikolai Vavilov has in spired the editors to publish the essay The Man Standing on the Globe written by Dr. Margarita Vishnyakova as the introductory article to the Spanish translation of Vavilov’s Five Continents (Cinco continentes). This book was published in 2015 by Libros del Jata S.L., a small publishing company in Bilbao, Spain. Margarita Vishnyakova was directly involved in the process of publication. She was acquainted with Dr. Gustavo Renobales, a former professor of botany at the University of the Basque Country, who became the book’s editor and publisher. As soon as the publishing process was initiated, Gustavo sought Margarita’s aid. She helped to overcome formalities associated with copyright and assisted with translation and selection of illustrations, also contributing to the solution of some botanical and linguistic problems (Vishnyakova, 2017). It took two years to finalize the publication. This essay was published only in Spanish. The original Russian version is presented here

Genetic diversity of broad beans (Vicia faba) in the collection of the Vavilov Institute and its use in breeding

The paper presents brief information about the history of the collection of broad (horse) beans (Vicia faba L.) at the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources (VIR), its composition, research trends, and significance for domestic breeding. The collection started in 1916 with Vavilov’s collecting activities in the Pamirs. Currently, the collection consists of 1733 accessions from 67 countries, obtained from foreign genebanks through germplasm exchange and seed requests, received from domestic and foreign breeders, and collected in numerous expeditions. Broad beans are used for food (vegetable) and feed; they are adapted to a wide range of latitudes and altitudes. A larger part of the collection is represented by fodder accessions. The main principle whereupon the collection is being augmented is the priorities of domestic breeding. The paper provides information on the botanical, environmental and geographical diversity of VIR’s broad bean collection, its level of studiedness, current research issues, and the use of the collection in the breeding process. The crop’s biological traits, characteristics of vegetable and fodder accessions, current breeding trends and source material for breeding are described. A brief analysis of the current status of broad bean breeding in Russia and VIR’s contribution to this process is presented, including the Institute’s direct involvement in the development of several cultivars of both feed and food uses. Presently, 30 broad bean cultivars are listed in the State Register of Breeding Achievements of the Russian Federation, and 28 of them are the products of domestic breeding

Prospects for obtaining low-alkaloid and adaptive forms of narrow-leafed lupinе based on the genome and transcriptome resources of the species

The narrow-leafed lupinе (Lupinus angustifolius L.) is considered as a crop of untapped opportunities. The food and forage potential of the species is not fully exploited due to the presence of quinolizidine alkaloids (QA) in plants, which are secondary metabolites that make the seeds bitter and toxic to humans and animals. Varieties with a low content of QA (“sweet” varieties) created over the last 50-60 years turned out to be more susceptible to damage by sucking insects and insect-transmitted viruses than high alkaloid ones (“bitter” varieties). Based on the rapidly developing genomic, transcriptomic and metabolomic profiling of the species, some molecular determinants and features of alkaloid biosynthesis in narrow-leafed lupinе plants have been identified: alkaloids are formed in the vegetative organs of the plant and then transported to the seeds. This information substantiated the creation of “bitter-sweet” forms with a high content of alkaloids in the vegetative parts of the plant, which would make it possible to reduce the attack of pathogens, and a minimal content of alkaloids in the seeds. This review summarizes the existing prerequisites for obtaining such forms of narrow-leafed lupinе on the basis of the available scientific developments. Information on the creation of saturated genetic maps of the species, in which the iucundus (iuc) locus determining the overall low alkaloid content in seeds is integrated and is used in breeding programs. The use of the new generation sequencing allowed the identification of the RAP2-7 gene, encoding the transcription factor APETALA2/ETHYLENE RESPONSE FACTOR, which is coupled to the iuc locus and located in the area with the main QTLs that affect the composition of the QA. It is a likely candidate gene for regulating alkaloid content in narrow-leafed lupinе seeds. The initial stages of QA biosynthesis and its regulatory factors have been revealed. Two reference assemblies of the genome of narrow-leafed lupinе have been carried out. All these achievements constitute a valuable resource for the creation of forms of narrow-leafed lupinе with a high content of alkaloids in the vegetative mass and low in the seeds, which are absent in nature

Green gram and black gram: prospects of cultivation and breeding in Russian Federation

Diversifcation of crop production in the Russian Federation could be partly achieved by the introduction and production of minor and underutilized crops. Green gram or mung bean (Vigna radiata (L.) R. Wilczek) and black gram or urd (V. mungo (L.) Hepper) are grain legume crops cultivated in limited areas in the Russian Federation. Meanwhile, green gram occupies about 8.5 % of the world production area under pulses (without soybean). It is cultivated mainly in countries of Southeast Asia, but production is expanding to the entire subtropical belt of the globe. In our country these crops can be successfully grown on irrigation in a number of regions in the southern area of the European part and the Russian Far East, where the temperatures during their vegetation are about 28–30 °C and always above 15 °C. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the world’s experience in breeding improvement of mung bean and urd as crops with promise for cultivation in certain soil and climatic zones of the Russian Federation. The world production, use of these high-protein crops, history and peculiarities of breeding, including in the USSR, are covered. To expand the production of both crops in the Russian Federation, their popularization and development of breeding are required. Basic requirements for modern varieties include resistance to biotic and abiotic stressors which can be introgressed from wild relatives. The great importance of both crops in the Asian countries led to the rapid development of molecular researches there. The genome of black gram has been fully sequenced, the genome of green gram has been partly sequenced. Some genes and QTL of adaptability traits have been marked and mapped in a number of wild species of the genus Vigna. The role of wild relatives in the breeding of crops concerned is discussed. In the world genebanks, signifcant genetic resources of mung bean and urd have been accumulated. All this creates prerequisites for the development of marker-assistant and genomic breeding

The Harish-Chandra isomorphism for reductive symmetric superpairs

We consider symmetric pairs of Lie superalgebras which are strongly reductive and of even type, and introduce a graded Harish-Chandra homomorphism. We prove that its image is a certain explicit filtered subalgebra of the Weyl invariants on a Cartan subspace whose associated graded is the image of Chevalley's restriction map on symmetric invariants. This generalises results of Harish-Chandra and V. Kac, M. Gorelik.Comment: 43 pages; v2: substantially improved versio

English textbooks for Russian students: Problems and specific features

© 2017, Association for Social Studies Educa. All rights reserved. The research identifies the complexity level of eight texts from Spotlight 11 used in Russian TEFL to prepare students for National Unified Exam in English and assess their reading skills. The results of the analyses conducted with the help of T.E.R.A., an automated text processor, prove that all texts fell within the range of 6 – 9 Flesch-Kincaid grade levels which correspond to the English language proficiency of the target audience. We also revealed the absence of a clear progression in difficulty across the eight texts in the continuum which may cause unpredictable test results and contribute to demotivation of students. The results also show that the indices of narrativity, syntactic simplicity, word concreteness, referential cohesion and deep cohesion measured with T.E.R.A. do not grow but fluctuate across the continuum of the texts either. Aiming at selecting authentic texts with steadily growing complexity of each of the above mentioned parameters, we recommend to incorporate the suggested algorithm of text analysis into TEFL practice in Russia. T.E.R.A. is viewed by the authors as a tool able to provide educators with a solid foundation to select texts, develop curriculum, design assessment tasks and otherwise address academic needs of a target audience

The passport database of VIR’s bean collection as a tool for systemizing bean genetic diversity, studying the collection’s history, and monitoring the crop’s worldwide breeding (an overview)

The main document attesting the composition of a collection is the passport database (DB), which contains basic information about every accession: its name, status, origin, the year of its placement into the collection, etc. The effort to include every detail of such information into the database opens up a number of possibilities for structuring and exploring the diversity available. For the bean collection, the history of its systemization has had several stages. In 1923, systemic recording of bean accessions that entered the collection started with their registration in special journals, called catalogues. Since the middle of the 1960s, computer aids have been used for data logging and processing. In the 1990s, the DBs thus developed were transferred to personal computers. Today, such data are formatted as a computerized passport database, unified in accordance with modern international standards and consisting of 35 fields. Analysis of the Phaseolus passport database has shown that the bean collection consists of 6586 accessions, registered in the permanent catalogue. These accessions represent four cultivated species of different breeding status from 102 countries of the world. The largest percentage in the collection belongs to the accessions of European origin (61%). The accessions from North and South Americas (over 600 and 460 entries, respectively) make up 17% of the collection, while the gene pool of Asian countries, 16%. The biggest replenishments of VIR’s bean collection in its entire long history happened in the times of the USSR (2129 entries). The passport DB also makes it possible to conduct worldwide monitoring of the breeding work with beans, because it provides a comprehensive overview of the history of bean breeding and its present-day status in foreign countries, the ex-USSR republics and the Russian Federation. The purpose of this article has been to analyze the passport database of VIR’s bean collection and the information stored in it, and produce a retrospective essay on the documentation of the Phaseolus germplasm holdings at VIR

Genetic resources of narrow-leaved lupine (Lupinus angustifolius L.) and their role in its domestication and breeding

Narrow-leaved lupine (Lupinus angustifolius L.) is a cultivated multipurpose species with a very short history of domestication. It is used as a green manure, and for feed and food. This crop shows good prospects for use in pharmacology and as a source of fish feeds in aquaculture. However, its genetic potential for the development of productive and adaptable cultivars is far from being realized. For crop species, the genetic base of the cultivated gene pool has repeatedly been shown as being much narrower than that of the wild gene pool. Therefore, efficient utilization of a species’ genetic resources is important for the crop’s further improvement. Analyzing the information on the germplasm collections preserved in national gene banks can help perceive the worldwide diversity of L. angustifolius genetic resources and understand how they are studied and used. In this context, the data on the narrow-leaved lupine collection held by VIR are presented: its size and composition, the breeding status of accessions, methods of studying and disclosing intraspecific differentiation, the classifications used, and the comparison of this information with available data on other collections. It appeared that VIR’s collection of narrow-leaved lupine, ranking as the world’s second largest, differed significantly from others by the prevalence of advanced cultivars and breeding material in it, while wild accessions prevailed in most collections. The importance of the wild gene pool for the narrow-leaved lupine breeding in Australia, the world leader in lupine production, is highlighted. The need to get an insight into the species’ ecogeographic diversity in order to develop cultivars adaptable to certain cultivation conditions is shown. The data on the testing of VIR’s collection for main crop characters valuable for breeders are presented. Special attention is paid to the study of accessions with limited branching as a promising gene pool for cultivation in relatively northern regions of Russia. They demonstrate lower but more stable productivity, and suitability for cultivation in planting patterns, which has a number of agronomic advantages. Analyzing the work with narrow-leaved lupine genetic resources in different national gene banks over the world helps shape the prospects of further activities with VIR’s collection as the only source of promising material for domestic breeding

Ecogeographic assessment of mung bean (<i>Vigna radiata</i> (L.) R. Wilczek) from the collection of the Vavilov Institute (VIR)

Background. Mung bean (Vigna radiata (L.) R. Wilczek) is a nontraditional crop for Russia. The crop’s main areas of cultivation are situated in the subtropical zone of the planet. However, positive experience with mung bean cultivation in a number of regions – the South of the European part and the Far East of Russia – implies the expediency of a search for source materials suitable for the development of cultivars adapted to these conditions.Materials and methods. The results of the field phenotyping of 76 mung bean landraces from VIR have been analyzed. The experiments were performed in 1949–1956 in Uzbekistan (former Central Asian Branch of VIR), and in 2009, 2018 and 2019 in Astrakhan Province, where VIR’s collection had been reproduced from the early 1990s. The data on the variability of phenological and agronomic characters and their relationships were compared for both areas and analyzed using the methods of multidimensional statistics.Results and discussion. A strong variability of all studied characters and their dependence on the environment were observed in both locations. According to the averaged longterm data, differences were found in the duration of interphase periods and the entire growing season, seed yield, plant height, and 1000 seed weight in both sites. Significant differences were shown in the strength of correlations between the studied characters. In Astrakhan Province and in the years with less favorable conditions in Uzbekistan, the level of correlations between most traits was higher. Therefore, an increase in the strength of the relationships between crop characters may be regarded as an indicator of unfavorable growing conditions. The genotypes with short periods from sprouting to flowering and from sprouting to maturation were the most resistant to environmental changes. It is these traits that should first of all be transferred to mung bean cultivars when promoting its production to the north, beyond its traditional area