Formation of a scientific school on genetic resources, selection and genetics of grapes in Russia from N.I. Vavilov to the present day

Abstract

While discussing the establishment of scientific school of grapevine genetic resources, breeding and genetics in Russia, its formation is of undoubted scientific importance not by one individual only, but generally by studying and analyzing the contribution of generations of scientists in the country, focusing, as a baseline, on fundamental researches and stated theories of N.I. Vavilov. Analyzing the historical and modern stages of grape breeding methodology in conjunction with source material – genetic resources, and those determined by the specificity of pattern genome manifesting and inheriting genetically determined traits, it is necessary to highlight two aspects: the process of grape gene pool formation, the origin of individual varieties in the process of natural evolution, and task-oriented creation of new cultivars in the process of experimental evolution. Understanding of the methodology of grapevine natural morphogenesis in due course generated the methodology of targeted creation of new cultivars. Natural hybridization, natural mutagenesis and natural selection as initial methods of grapevine morphogenesis for generations of Russian scientists made it possible, using descriptive ampelography, to further move to directed hybridization, induced mutagenesis and induced polyploidization in combination with artificial selection. And only recently the transition from breeding at the organismal level to genome editing at the gene level became possible using modern bioengineering methods and various approaches to gene engineering.