The Current State of Forest Breeding in the Russian Federation: The Trend of Recent Decades

Abstract

The work is devoted to the study of the trends existing in forest breeding in Russia over the recent years, their comparison with similar achievements in foreign countries with close climatic conditions, and the assessment of the prospects for the development of this scientific and production direction in our country, based on the obtained results. The official data of State inventories over the last 25 years and national scientific publications were used. A number of foreign literature sources were also considered for comparison in addition to Russian sources. Quantitative indices of the following processes were studied: selection of plus trees; creation of clone archives, provenance trial and population-ecological plantations; allocation of forest genetic reserves and plus stands; organization of temporary and permanent forest seed plots; and creation of mother plantations, forest seed orchards and progeny field tests of plus trees. Materials on the development or degradation of forest genetic resources in Russia were analyzed by years. The analysis has shown that in Russia there is a regression of the state forest genetic and breeding complex. Over the past 25 years, there has been an average 50 % decline in individual components, with fluctuations in various indices ranging from 7 to 940 %. A comparison of the development of the unified forest genetic complex in our country with its development in a number of foreign countries (Canada, Norway, Sweden, and Finland) revealed our lag in almost all indices by several times. In particular, the selection intensity of plus trees in the countries of Northern Europe (Norway, Sweden, and Finland) is 21.0–61.7 times higher than in Russia. The provision with forest seed orchards in the Russian Federation is 2.7–12.0 times lower than in Norway and Finland. At the same time forest seed orchards of the more progressive, second order represent a large share in the Nordic countries. For instance, in Canada there are more than 30 % of them. In the Russian Federation, such plantations are practically absent and are not listed in official documents. The analysis has shown that it is time to develop a new long-term program of genetic and breeding improvement of forest tree species in order to preserve sustainable reforestation of Russian forests and their valuable gene pool, as well as to identify those responsible for its implementation. For citation: Tsarev A.P., Laur N.V., Tsarev V.A., Tsareva R.P. The Current State of Forest Breeding in the Russian Federation: The Trend of Recent Decades. Lesnoy Zhurnal [Russian Forestry Journal], 2021, no. 6, pp. 38–55. DOI: 10.37482/0536-1036-2021-6-38-55