Selection and Seed Production of Vegetable Crops, Institute of

Selection and Seed Production of Vegetable Crops, Institute of

 

(full name, All-Union Scientific Research Institute for Selection and Seed Production of Vegetable Crops), an institute of the Ministry of Agriculture of the USSR that was created in 1970 from the Gribovo Experimental Station (founded 1920) in Odintsovo Raion, Moscow Oblast. The institute has (1975) departments of seed production, variety evaluation, physiology and biochemistry, mechanization of selection and seed production, and research coordination. It also has separate laboratories for the selection and seed production of cabbage, root crops, solanaceous plants, cucurbits, onions and garlics, beans, rare crops, and flowering plants. In addition, there are laboratories of genetics and cytology, plant protection, seed science, and economics. The institute also has eight subsidiary experimental stations in various regions of the USSR.

The institute has developed various research methods in genetics and selection and has elaborated a theoretical basis for the growing of elite vegetable seeds. It has bred and introduced more than 100varieties, which occupy greater than 30percent of the area under vegetable cultivation in the USSR, including about 60percent of the land planted with vegetables in the Nonchernozem Region (1974). The best varieties are the liun’skaia, Nomer pervyi gribovskii 147, Amager 611, Belorusskaia 455, Slava 1305, and Podarok head cabbages; the Raniaia Gribovskaia cauliflower; the Viaznikovskii 37, Muromskii 36, and Iziashchnyi cucumbers; the Alpat’eva 905–2and Gruntovyi gribovskii 1180tomatoes; the Nantskaia carrot; and the Bordo 237beet. A great deal of research has been devoted to the selection of heterozygous hybrids and female cucumber plants. The cabbage, root-crop, and tomato varieties bred by the institute are well known abroad.

The institute is the center for organizing and coordinating research on vegetable selection and seed production in the USSR, It has a graduate program. Since 1970the institute has published Trudy (Transactions). It was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1970.

P. F. SOKOL