Hydro and aeroponics instead of soil. Red lamps replace the sun, and nutrients every 5-10 minutes through the hoses go directly to the roots. Thanks to new automated plants, the Siberian Research Institute of Plant Growing and Breeding has created ideal conditions for growing seed potatoes. Harvesting - every three and a half months. Then cleaning, washing the trays and a new landing.
“These facilities are not yet run-in, as it should. We were one of the first to receive them. Therefore, we really have problems. Sometimes high salt content in the nutrient solution. It is delayed, nozzles clog. These are the little things that need to be addressed, ”said Nikolai Polukhin, lead researcher at the Potato Laboratory at the Siberian Research Institute of Plant Growing and Breeding.
Failure in the system - a log entry: experts record every little thing. Report to Moscow, staff of the All-Russian Research Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology. There, where this installation was invented. To bring it to perfection is the task of the designers. There are no problems with seedlings. In a nearby laboratory, a collection that has been collected for years. In test tubes with a nutrient medium - more than 150 varieties of potatoes!
“Our main goal is to support this collection and not to lose varieties so that we always have them. So that we don’t have to look somewhere, ask, but that they are always at hand, ”emphasizes Kristina Kaloshina, senior laboratory assistant at the laboratory for selection, seed production and cultivation of vegetables.
There is no shortage in our region. However, the shelves are mainly foreign goods. German, Dutch, French. Domestic is represented only by the Nevsky variety (it was bred in the Leningrad region) and Lina (the brainchild of the Siberian Research Institute of Plant Growing and Breeding).
“Under good conditions, in the first year we plan to get three crops. The situation should change radically. The prevailing position should be occupied by our varieties, domestic. For this we have already done a lot. Not only by variety, but also by seed. So that those seeds that are used are produced in our country, ”comments Ivan Lichenko, director of the Siberian Research Institute of Plant Growing and Breeding.
Today, breeders must take market requirements into account.
Most retailers typically sell red potatoes. He has a better presentation. The main advantage: on such tubers, the gardening that occurs after a long exposure of the vegetable to the light is almost imperceptible.
Siberian scientists have technologies that give certain varieties the desired color. Breeders work with geneticists. The task is to develop new samples that are resistant to plant diseases. Especially to the golden potato nematode.
Source: http://vn.ru