Boris Anisimov, Federal Research Center of Potatoes named after V.I. A.G. Lorkha
The beginning of potato cultivation in Russia is usually associated with the name of Peter I. There is a version that Peter I, having met potatoes in Holland (1697-1698) and appreciating its merits, sent a bag of potato tubers to Count Sheremetev with a strict order to breed this crop in Russia ... It is believed that the history of growing potatoes in Russia began with this bag of potatoes. However, there is no information about the further fate of this royal premise. If it did take place in reality, it was only one of the ways of penetration of potatoes into our country. In any case, it is known from archival materials that in the middle of the XNUMXth century. in many Russian cities and rural settlements, peasants and gardeners have already grown potatoes.
At first, potatoes in Russia, as elsewhere, were considered an outlandish exotic product. It was served as a rare and delicious dish at palace balls and banquets. And, strange as it may seem, the potatoes were then sprinkled not with salt, but with sugar.
Gradually, Russians learned more about the benefits of potatoes. More than 200 years ago, in one of the articles of the magazine "Compositions and translations, for the benefit and amusement of employees", dedicated to potatoes, it was said that "earth apples" (as the first time the name of potatoes) is a pleasant and healthy meal. It was indicated that potatoes can be used to bake bread, cook porridge, cook pies and dumplings. Already in 1764-1776. potatoes were cultivated in the gardens of St. Petersburg, Novgorod, near Riga and in other places.
An important role in the distribution of potatoes in Russia was played by the Medical College, which was then the second scientific institution in Russia after the Academy of Sciences. When in the 60s of the XVIII century. famine broke out in some parts of the country, the Medical College sent a special report to the Senate. This report, in particular, stated that the best way to fight hunger “... consists of those earthen apples, which in England are called potetes, and in other places, earthen pears, tartuffles and potatoes».
The Senate issued a special decree stating about potatoes: «Кabout such a great usefulness of these apples and that they require very little labor during divorce, and this reward immensely and not only to people for pleasant and healthy food, but also serve as food for every domestic animal, they should be honored for the best vegetable in household construction and for divorce try his best».
In addition to the decree, the Senate also issued a special "instruction", i.e. potato cultivation guide. The fact that in 1765-1766 the Senate was serious about the distribution of potatoes in Russia is evidenced by the fact that in 22-30. he discussed this issue 40 times. Practical steps were immediately taken: seeds were purchased and sent to all provinces, including the most distant ones. These measures have given the due results. Very soon, potatoes gained recognition in many provinces of Central Russia, Ukraine, and the Baltic states. True, there were also serious unrest associated with the forced introduction of potato crops, when the best land was taken from the peasants for potatoes, they were punished for failure to comply with the instructions of the authorities, and they were levied with extortions. In the XNUMX-XNUMXs of the XIX century. in response to the violent measures of the government of Nicholas I, the so-called "potato riots" arose.
The activities of the Free Economic Society, organized in St. Petersburg in 1765, were of great importance in the development of potato growing in Russia. Many articles by prominent scientists of that time who promoted potatoes were published in the "Trudy" of this society. Among them, a special role belongs to the first Russian scientist-agronomist Andrei Timofeevich Bolotov. In 1770, he published a scientific article, "A Note on the Tarto." It was one of the first and most detailed works "on the establishment, planting and propagation of potatoes", as well as "on the collection and maintenance of these." It was Bolotov who was the first to call potatoes not "earthy apples" and not "potatoes", but "tartatoes." Over time, this name was transformed into potato.
There were many other enthusiasts of the new culture in Russia. A special merit in potato cultivation belongs to the Petersburg gardener Efim Andreevich Grachev, a native of Yaroslavl peasants. His collection of potatoes included over 100 varieties. For his services in acclimatization and breeding of new varieties, he received 60 medals at various exhibitions in Russia and abroad. At the International Gardening Exhibition in St. Petersburg, Grachev's potato varieties were recognized as the best. Grachev acclimatized the American variety Early Rose, which in the conditions of Russia acquired new qualities and became a very popular variety among the people - "early ripening-loose". Later this work was continued by N. Ya. Nikitinsky. He received from his daughter Grachev all the varieties available at that time and began to breed them in the Kostino estate bought for this purpose in the Ryazan province.
N. Ya. Nikitinsky also received many varieties from abroad, was in active correspondence with customers, sent them catalogs and seed material upon request. He devoted a lot of time to experimental work: crossing, selecting and propagating the best hybrids to create new varieties. Collection of potatoes N.Ya. Nikitinsky increased to 400 varieties, including hybrids bred by crossing. The Kostino estate was at that time the only major source of seed potatoes in the country. In 1912 N. Ya. Nikitinsky died, his wife continued the work on breeding and maintaining the varieties. After the revolution of 1917, the Kostino estate fell into disrepair, as it did not receive state support.
In 1919, the Bureau of Applied Botany of the Agricultural Scientific Committee began work on creating a collection of source material and regular collection of samples (domestic and foreign) for breeding domestic potato varieties. In 1920, when the Korenev Experimental Station (later the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Potato Farming) was organized in the Moscow region, its founder and director A.G. Lorkh brought a collection of varieties of N.Ya. Nikitinsky. In the same period T.V. Aseeva and A.G. Lorkh organized and carried out mass surveys and selection of varieties (domestic and foreign) on peasant crops of potatoes in the Moscow province. A.G. Lorkh also wrote out and replenished the collection of the most common and new foreign varieties. Using this source material, the employees of the Korenevskaya station in 1921 began breeding work to create domestic varieties of potatoes. By 1930, the varieties Lorkh and Korenevsky were bred and zoned, the first of which is still cultivated in Russia.
In the period from 1925 to 1958. a lot of valuable source material for breeding was introduced during the expeditions conducted by S.M. Bukasov, S.V. Yuzepchuk, N.I. Vavilov, P.M. Zhukovsky and other researchers of plant resources in South America. Based on geographical, botanical and cytological research, S.M. Bukasov built the world's first scientifically grounded system of potato species, which was immediately recognized as the best taxonomists of the New and Old World. It is also the basis for all modern systems of tuber-forming potatoes.
Work carried out at the Research Institute of Plant Industry named after V.I. N.I. Vavilov (VIR) on the conservation, study and use of potato genetic diversity in breeding contributed to the development of breeding programs and primary seed production (supporting breeding) of original potato varieties created on the basis of zonal research institutes of agriculture located in various ecological and geographical conditions. country.
The varietal composition of potatoes that developed in Russia in the second half of the 90th century already at the beginning of the XNUMXs ceased to meet new market requirements, especially with regard to the characteristics of the commercial quality of potatoes entering trade. So, in the category of large potato producers, including agricultural organizations (AO) and Peasant (farm) farms (PFH), the shortage of good varieties of table purpose and varieties suitable for processing began to be felt especially acutely, and for small farms of the population it was necessary to expand the choice, in the first turn, early ripening, late blight and nematode resistant varieties.
In these conditions, scientists and breeders of Russia in a fairly short time have radically improved the methodological and technological foundations for creating potato varieties in demand. The main efforts were aimed at studying the nature of inheritance and correlations of the main characteristics that determine the predicted target use of varieties, assessing the combinational ability of parental forms and identifying specific combinations of crossing for certain areas of practical breeding, developing models of varieties for various target use, taking into account the level of manifestation of the main economic significant signs, etc.
The use of new methodological approaches in practical breeding allowed for the period 1991-2010. to create more than 70 varieties that have successfully passed state tests and were included in the State Register of Breeding Achievements approved for use in production.
According to the data of ecological-geographical and state tests, the potential of the varieties included in the State Register provided a yield at the level of 40-45 t / ha, which was realized under production conditions with an appropriate technological level of potato cultivation.
Significant progress in the rate of selection of new varieties that meet the requirements of agricultural production was achieved in the breeding center of the All-Russian Research Institute of Potato Economy as a result of successful implementation under the guidance of a well-known geneticist and breeder, Doctor of Agricultural Sciences. THEM. Yashina's breeding program for the parallel development of identical hybrid populations in different ecological and geographical conditions. Breeders of regional scientific institutions have taken part in the work on this program since 1986. All of them had the opportunity to receive genetically diverse breeding material from the selection center of the All-Russian Research Institute of Potato Economy, pre-selected at the stage of pre-breeding selection for the presence of valuable dominant genes and polygenes responsible for many economically valuable traits - mainly for resistance to diseases and pests and heterozygosity, which determines high yields in potatoes.
The implementation of the program for the use of identical populations for selection in different ecological and geographical conditions has made it possible to significantly increase the number of bred varieties with a wide range of adaptive capacity to the conditions of the main regions of potato cultivation. The joint program to test identical hybrid populations has allowed all its participants to save money on the development of new varieties.
As part of the strategy for the further development of practical breeding, scientists of the V.I. A.G. Lorkh under the guidance of Doctor of Agricultural Sciences E.A. Simakov, the most important directions for the period up to 2020 were identified:
Creation of competitive table varieties that are in demand in the consumer market. The main parameters for them are: attractive appearance of tubers, high tasting performance, non-darkening pulp in raw and boiled form. The degree of digestibility of table varieties can vary from non-digestible (salad type) to more crumbly types. For the modern consumer, characteristics in terms of tuber shape, skin color and flesh color have also become important.
The range of table varieties provided, first of all, to intensify work on the creation of early ripening varieties for an early harvest, including very early varieties with a marketable harvest 70-80 days after planting and early varieties with a growing season of up to 80-90 days.
One of the new directions that have been developed in the selection of table potato varieties is an increase in the content of antioxidants in tubers and the creation of varieties with an intense (bright) anthocyanin or carotenoid color of the pulp of tubers, high nutritional value for use in a modern balanced healthy diet.
Creation of varieties for processing into potato products (chips, French fries, dry mashed potatoes). These varieties should have distinctive properties, of which the content of dry matter (20-25%) and reducing sugars (optimally up to 0,2%) in tubers, which determine the quality and color of the final finished product, are especially important. Tubers intended for processing for a specific product must have their own parameters in shape (chips - round, fries - elongated), depth of eyes, resistance to injury, darkening of the pulp, the output of a commercial fraction of a standard size.
Creation of technical varieties with a high starch content. This direction also takes into account the possibility of improving the quality characteristics of starch (the size of starch grains, the ratio of amylose and amylopectin and other indicators). The combination of increased starch content (at least 18%) with resistance to late blight and potato nematode is also important for this group of varieties.
Increasing the resistance of varieties to various diseases also remained the most important condition in the development of potato breeding for various purposes. This criterion is especially relevant in modern conditions of the constantly increasing harmfulness of most pathogens, the emergence of new races and strains, and the formation of resistant forms to fungicides. Proceeding from this, the breeding programs envisaged a combination of different types of resistance in the created varieties - immunity, hypersensitivity, tolerance, field resistance depending on the disease, used resistance gene sources and the possibility of using chemical and biological plant protection products.
A significant contribution to the development of breeding programs was made by regional scientific institutions conducting potato breeding in various agro-climatic zones of the Russian Federation. This made it possible to ensure the creation of varieties of different ripening periods, combining high productivity and product quality with high resistance to common diseases, pests and a wide range of adaptability to environmental conditions.
Over the past decade (2010-2020), Russian originators have created more than 50 new promising varieties for various purposes, including table varieties for early production and long-term storage, varieties for dietary nutrition and processing into potato products (french fries, chips, dry potatoes puree), as well as technical varieties for the production of starch.
Recently, in the potato breeding programs, serious adjustments have been made by new requirements of the consumer market associated with the need to improve the quality of nutrition in human life - to reduce the calorie content of food, increase the content of complete protein, vitamins and antioxidants. Taking into account these requirements in potato breeding, intensive work is already being carried out with the source material for obtaining promising hybrids and creating varieties that differ in biochemical characteristics of tubers, including high- and low-starchy ones, with an increased content of protein, vitamins and antioxidants that strengthen the human immune system. Of course, to a large extent, the progress of breeding towards increasing the nutritional value of potato tubers is determined by the level of knowledge of the genetic nature of the selected traits and the use of modern molecular genetic research methods, including the use of DNA markers, the development of new technologies of marker-assisted selection (MAS), as well as new highly efficient methods and technologies for directed editing of the potato genome in order to obtain genotypes with specified economically valuable traits for subsequent breeding study.
One of the priority areas is also the wider application of modern biotechnological methods and meristem-tissue technologies for obtaining and clonal micropropagation of the original in vitro material and the creation on this basis of a competitive fund of original seed potatoes of new promising varieties.
Assessing the current state of the consumer potato market in Russia, it should be noted that, according to the World Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in the world as a whole, the consumption of potatoes and potato products per capita is about 35 kg per year, while the average for throughout the European region, this figure is at the level of 85 kg per inhabitant, and in Russia - 90 kg per person.
In the Russian Federation, the average annual volume of potatoes consumed for food purposes is estimated at 13-14 million tons. For deep processing of potato products (french fries, chips, dry mashed potatoes), about 1 million tons are consumed. The need for seed potatoes for categories of agricultural organizations (AHO), peasant (farmer) enterprises (PFH) and individual entrepreneurs (IE) with a total planting area of over 300 thousand hectares is about 1 million tons. It is extremely difficult to estimate the real volumes of potato use for seeds and livestock feed in the category of small-scale households of the population, although the estimated figure here may be 5-6 million tons. According to official statistics, in all categories of farms, the consumption of potatoes for seeds in 2018 amounted to 4,6 million tons, for fodder for livestock, 4,3 million tons. Average annual losses during storage of potatoes are estimated at 1,5 million tons.
According to the Federal Customs Service of Russia, in 2019 export deliveries of potatoes amounted to 298,3 thousand tons.
Thus, in Russia, the level of supply with domestically produced potatoes should be at least 22 million tons. A decrease in this level may result in a deficit in the general balance of marketable potatoes, and, consequently, an increase in the share of imports. The projected share of imports in the total volume of consumed potatoes is estimated at 300-350 thousand tons. These are mainly early "young" potatoes, for which demand and sales in retail chains usually increase in the off-season, when the shelf life of last year's crop stocks practically ends in May, and at least 2 -x months.
Gross harvest of potatoes in Russia in all categories of farms in 2019 amounted to 22,0 million tons, including 7,5 million tons in agricultural organizations and peasant farms. The analysis showed that over the past 15 years, the share of households in potato production has significantly decreased. So, for the period from 2013, there was a decrease from 77,7% to 65,8%, while the share of agricultural organizations increased from 13,8 to 21,0%, peasant (farmer) households and individual entrepreneurs - from 8,6 to 13,3 , XNUMX%.
It is most likely that in the coming years a further reduction in the share of households in the total volume of potato production can be expected and their influence on the market for marketable potatoes will further decline. A possible increase in the gross production of commercial potatoes in agricultural enterprises, peasant farms and individual entrepreneurs can be achieved in part by expanding areas and, especially, by increasing yields.
In the short term, the predicted average potato yield in agricultural enterprises using modern technologies may stabilize at the level of 26-28 t / ha. In peasant farms, it is likely that a lower level of productivity will remain within the range of 21-23 t / ha, which is largely due to a more backward material and technical base in comparison with agricultural enterprises, as well as the still more difficult access of farmers to leasing equipment, loans, subsidies for fertilizers, fuel and other resources.
In most agricultural enterprises with the necessary material and technical base and well-established distribution channels, potato production is likely to remain stable. At the same time, in our opinion, the significant potential for a real increase in the volume of potato production can be used in the category of peasant (farmer) households and individual entrepreneurs. To increase the efficiency of potato production in this category of farms, the development of inter-farm cooperation in the production and circulation of commercial and seed potatoes can be especially important. The accumulated experience of domestic and best foreign practices shows that within the framework of inter-farm associations, farmers, becoming members of a cooperative and fulfilling its charter, do not lose economic and economic independence, but they free themselves from problems in selling products, importing materials necessary for its production or obtaining other services. ... At the same time, the rational use of all available resources and capabilities of each member of the cooperative is ensured in order to reduce the cost, improve the quality of the final product and make a profit.
The high efficiency of interfarm cooperation in the production and circulation of seed and ware potatoes is confirmed by many years of experience in the best world practices of countries with a high level of development of the potato industry (France, the Netherlands, the USA, etc.). Taking this into account, inter-farm cooperation on the basis of a voluntary association of potato-growing peasant (farmer) farms, as well as economically strong individual entrepreneurs, could become one of the most effective and promising directions in the development of the potato industry in Russia.
In conclusion, I would like to once again draw attention to the fact that in recent years our knowledge and understanding of the nutritional value of potatoes as the most important product in human nutrition has expanded significantly, which is largely due to the results of in-depth studies in the field of its biochemical composition, as well as intensive development breeding in the direction of increasing the nutritional value of potatoes.
Due to the well-balanced content of biologically important components in the tubers (carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, antioxidants, mineral salts, organic acids, etc.) and their favorable ratio, potatoes rightfully occupy and will occupy one of the leading places among products with a high nutritional value, and its role in the healthy diet of modern humans will undoubtedly only increase.