Genetic resources of cultivated plants as the basis for Russia’s food and environmental security

Abstract

The RAS Presidium meeting of April 19, 2014, considered in detail the problem of replenishing, studying, preserving, and rationally using the genetic resources of cultivated plants and their wild relatives. This is a task not only for domestic selection institutes but also for the world community as a whole. Russian scientists and their foreign colleagues make colossal efforts to collect samples of wild plants in expeditions and to breed new varieties with unique agronomic traits. The continuous replenishment of the plant gene pool and its rational use is a passport to the food, environmental, and economic stability of our country. The keynote paper, presented by Director of the Vavilov Research Institute of the Plant Industry (VIR) N.I. Dzyubenko, and the coreports heard at the meeting are offered to the reader.