Russian breeders annually create new promising potato varieties, but specialized scientific institutions often have a poor technological base and use low-coefficient reproduction technologies, which affects the rate of seed production. Private companies involved in the production of virus-free potato seeds also need modern, efficient equipment.
The Meristema project, implemented by the Ural company NPO Agross, can help domestic seed growers move to a qualitatively new technological level.
The essence of the project is to develop a technology for the production of primary virus-free potato material in an isolated environment for the purposes of original seed production and accelerated breeding. The technology will allow for an accelerated assessment of the potential of numbered hybrids in the breeding process, as well as performing many functional operations related to the original seed production and breeding process, including hybridization and clonal selection.
The company is working on developing a technological line of specialized equipment (aerohydroponic module, lighting devices, machines for preparing seed and planting material), as well as a set of agrotechnological techniques and software, which together allow the production of virus-free primary potato seed material for the purposes of original seed production and accelerated selection:
- With a maximum reproduction rate (minimum 30 mini-tubers per plant in vitro, which is 4,3-6 times higher than with the traditional pot growing method).
- Wide range of possible tasks. The technology will allow for at least 3 cultivation cycles per calendar year.
- Ease of maintenance. The automation rate is 90% of all growing processes.
- The shortest possible implementation period (launch of the production cycle).
- Low production costs.
The existing design of the prototype aerohydroponic module makes it possible to obtain potato mini-tubers with a coefficient of 50 to 500 pieces per plant in vitro. The data is confirmed by articles of the Higher Attestation Commission written by
in collaboration with specialists from the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The company has developed its own software PRIMOCORE, designed for use as a central control system for devices of the PRIMO line, with the ability to remotely monitor and control it in an automated manner.
As project manager Alexey Kovalev emphasizes: “The uniqueness of the installation is not in the hardware or the use of a special lighting unit, but in the technological production cycles. On this installation, theoretically, it is possible to grow everything: from strawberries to lettuce, but our plans are to bring to the market easy-to-use, easy-to-maintain and administer, reliable equipment that will allow any of the enterprises operating in the field of original potato seed production to grow according to their needs the required amount of primary material (mini-tubers), while reducing its cost and increasing quality.”
The first sample of the Meristem LAB 40 automated installation in the basic configuration was put into operation in November 2020 in the Technopark "University" of the Sverdlovsk region. The project participants planted in vitro potato plants of the Legend variety in this installation, selected by the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution Urfanitsi Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Then the equipment was moved to the premises of the Ural Research Institute of Agriculture, a branch of the Ural Federal Agrarian Research Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where the project’s demonstration site was located for about two years. Joint work with scientists from the selection and technology center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences helped to achieve important results, but then NPO Agross, for a number of reasons, decided to act independently.
On October 31, 2023, the company opened a new experimental laboratory in the Universitetsky Technopark to study biotechnological cultivation techniques, as well as the behavior of potato plants when grown from plants in vitro in artificial environments. Already on November 2, potato plants were planted in vitro on an automated installation.
Today, Meristem platforms are installed in state educational and research institutes in Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and Irkutsk.
At the Irkutsk Agrarian University, 4 mini-tubers were obtained as part of the first growing cycle. Reproduction coefficient is 671 tubers per plant. 58,3 tubers – fractions 2+ mm, i.e. suitable for mechanized planting. The multiplication rate achieved is considered very high.
Cooperation with the university continues, the team of NPO "Agross" advises university staff and conducts joint scientific research on the behavior of the obtained material. And university employees, for their part, are forming proposals for further improvement of the equipment of the Meristema platform.
At the South Ural Research Institute of Horticulture and Potato Growing, the first planting of in vitro potatoes on “beds” took place in October 2023; plants of those varieties that were bred within the framework of the KSTP program were placed on the platform. The purpose of the experiment is to study the reaction of the variety to the application of aeroponic growing technology to it.
In December 2023, the Meristem Platform project, developed at NPO Agross, received resident status of the Skolkovo Foundation. The team of NPO Agross expects that the support of the fund will allow the project to accelerate and become sustainable.
By 2025, the company plans to begin producing standard devices for mass use. The presentation of this type of equipment is scheduled for mid-summer 2024. At the same time, the company will continue to produce experimental models of equipment for research institutes and universities.