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This paper presents the results on the breeding work carried out by the Subtropical Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Currently, the Centre’s breeders are doing a lot of work aimed at breeding new fine yielding cultivars of subtropical and flower crops that will be resistant to growing conditions; they include kaki persimmon, feijoa, mandarin, freesia, crown anemone, pelargonium and chrysanthemum. The sources of high-level priority traits in flower crops that are valuable for further breeding in order to improve decorative (colour, flower shape, inflorescence), economic and biological traits (flowering period, a large number of flowers in the inflorescence, storage period of cut flowers, disease resistance, high reproduction coefficient) were recorded. The aim of the research is to improve the subtropical and flower crops assortment. The objects of the research were 989 hybrid forms: 136 citrus crops, 56 persimmon, 36 feijoa, 38 tea plant, 11 pear, 24 hazel, 108 freesia, 398 crown anemone, 120 pelargonium and 62 chrysanthemum hybrids. New cultivars with a complex of valuable traits have been created as a result of the scientific work. Over the past five years, FRC SSC of RAS has created 50 new cultivars: 26 pelargonium, 15 anemone, 5 freesia, 2 chrysanthemum, 1 persimmon and 1 apple and submitted them to the State Cultivar Commission. The “State Register of Selection Achievements Authorized for Use for Production Purposes” has included 63 cultivars developed by FRC SSC RAS, including 26 pelargonium, 13 anemone, 9 chrysanthemum, 7 freesia, 4 hazel, 3 feijoa and 1 tea plant cultivars. 46 patents for breeding achievements have been obtained.

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The main problems of establishment a slow growth in vitro collection of citrus and other tree crops cultivars are high degree of fungal contamination of bud explants and low growth potential of shoots. In this regard, the aim of current research is to assess the efficiency of decontamination procedure and the possibility of tissue culture initiation and slow growth conservation of valuable lemon cultivars. The best results of surface sterilization were obtained using immersion solutions of 0.3 % Veltolen – 25 minutes or 10 % Domestos – 25–30 minutes. In these treatments, 27.7–33.0 % of aseptic explants were obtained, respectively. However, after the third subculture, the yield of aseptic viable explants decreased till 10 % as a result of secondary contamination by endophytic fungi. The addition of biocide (“Gavrish”) in a nutrient medium at a concentration of 1 ml/l helped to increase the yield of aseptic viable explants till 50 %. However, after the third subculture the photosynthetic activity and the pigments content as well as growth rate decreased. Plants dropped yellowish leaves and eventually died. Thus, 37.35 % of plantlets survived after 8 months of conservation, and only 14.6 % survived after 10 months. Even after the third month of conservation significant decrease in the viability index and the coefficient of photosynthetic activity occurred in plants. Chlorophyll a in leaves decreased from 1.59 to 1.14 mg/g during 12 months in vitro conservation. The similar tendency observed on clorophyll b and carotenoids content. The experiments were carried out for 5 years using different lemon cultivars and other citrus varieties and cultivars. Thus, micropropagation and slow growth in vitro conservation of valuable lemon cultivars are still problematic and requires new technical solutions due to the low growth potential of plantlets raised from the mature buds that is consistent with the data of other researchers.

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This paper presents the results of the breeding work carried out by the Subtropical Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The purpose of the research is to improve the assortment of subtropical and citrus crops. The objects of research were 230 hybrid forms, of which citrus - 138 hybrids, persimmons - 56, feijoa - 36. Currently, the breeders of the FRC SSC of RAS are working hard to develop new winter-hardy, high yielding, and high-quality cultivars resistant to growing conditions. The sources of priority traits have been identified, which are included in hybridization for the development of new cultivars with improved economic and biological traits. Over the past 5 years, the State Register of Breeding Achievements of the Russian Federation has included 3 cultivars of feijoa and 1 cultivar of kaki persimmon created in the Centre. On the test are 3 promising forms of tangerine, 2 feijoa and 1 form of kaki persimmon.

Persimmon germplasm in the Western Caucasus represent one of the most northerly collections. In our study, 51 commercial cultivars of D. kaki, 3 accessions of D. virginiana and 57 D. lotus accessions from six geographically distant populations were investigated using 19 microsatellite and 10 inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. After STRUCTURE analysis, the single accessions of Diospyros were allocated to three genetic clusters. Genetic admixtures in the important genotypes of D. kaki were revealed, whereas D. lotus accessions showed no admixture with other genetic clusters. The correspondence of genetic data and phenotypical traits was estimated in the D. kaki collection. The most frost tolerant genotypes of the collection, such as “Mountain Rogers”, “Nikitskaya Bordovaya”, “Rossiyanka”, “MVG Omarova”, “Meader”, “Costata”, “BBG”, and “Jiro”, showed a high percentage of genetic admixtures and were grouped close to D. virginiana. Some of these genotypes are known to be interspecific hybrids with D. virginiana. A low level of genetic diversity between the distant D. lotus populations was revealed and it can be speculated that D. lotus was introduced to the Western Caucasus from a single germplasm source. These results are an important basis for the implementation of conservation measures, developing breeding strategies, and improving breeding efficiency.

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