Abstract
THE Bureaux of Plant Genetics at Cambridge and Aberystwyth have published jointly a bulletin of 58 pages (price 3s. 6d.) on plant breeding in the Soviet Union. This is mainly a translation from the Russian of an address given by Prof. W. I. Vavilov at a conference on the planning of plant breeding and genetics investigations, held at Leningrad in 1932, and is followed by a detailed programme of work on different economic plants. The congress effected a reorganisation of the various genetical institutions in Russia and the adoption of a new system of fourteen plant breeding centres. This bulletin will be of service to all who are engaged in plant breeding, particularly on the practical side. It sets forth in outline the immense collections of economic plant material which have been made by expeditions to many parts of the world, notably Afghanistan, Kashmir, Abyssinia, Mexico, Bolivia and Peru. These embrace more than 200 crops, including 29,200 living specimens of wheat, 13,000 of barley, more than 9,000 of maize, 1,000 of potatoes, etc. There has resulted the conception of geographical centres for the production of varieties of many crops. The work includes cereals, vegetables, fruit trees, medicinal and fibre plants, etc. A series of new potato species with diverse characters and multiple chromosome numbers was found in the Andes. The vast amount of breeding work in progress and projected during the second five-year plan (1933-37) is outlined in the latter part of the bulletin.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Plant Breeding in the U.S.S.R. Nature 135, 145 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135145a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135145a0