The capacity of Russia's only center for accelerated crop breeding at the Siberian Federal Scientific Centre of Agro-BioTechnologies (SFSCA RAS) near Novosibirsk has been increased five times. This will allow to reduce by several times the time of obtaining new varieties of not only cereal crops, but also grain legumes, medicinal, fodder and potatoes. The SFSCA RAS director Kirill Golokhvast also told the TASS that there are plans to adapt cotton varieties to Siberian conditions.
The main center’s blocks were built at SFSCA at the end of 2022 as part of the "Breads of Russia" project which is being implemented by a team of 10 organizations under the leadership of the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources.
"Now we are investing additional funds in this center, we have purchased new equipment and increased its capacity five times. There will be grain legume crops - peas, soybeans, wild soybeans. We also have the opportunity to add fodder and medicinal crops. A separate rack is allocated for work with potatoes. In fact, it turns out to be an independent breeding station inside the building, which works all year round and produces up to five harvests per year, thus speeding up the process of variety development several times. In addition, it allows us to work with a huge number of crops in parallel," Golokhvast informed.
For six months of the center's work, scientists have already harvested two crops of different varieties of wheat, and the third one will be harvested in the autumn. In parallel, work is underway to develop indoor cultivation of the natural Siberian rubber-bearing plant – the dandelion kok-saghyz and peas.