The main trend in crop breeding is to increase productivity and improve grain quality indicators. The formation of high crop productivity requires cultivars with high potential for productivity and quality as well as with resistance to biotic and abiotic environmental factors. Successful solution of these and emerging breeding problems is possible only if appropriate source material is employed.Source material from the Vavilov Institute’s collection of plant genetic resources was used in crosses aimed at the development of oat cultivars. Its brief description is presented here.The results of the breeding work on oat cultivars at the Nemchinovka Federal Research Center from 2007 through 2017 are discussed. Descriptions are given to all ten developed oat cultivars with a detailed pedigree for each combination of crosses. Pedigree analysis has been performed, and its results show a limited number of parental forms for crosses. The problem of source material utilization in breeding practice and narrowing of the genetic base in the process of cultivar development is discussed.

Fusarium disease of oats reduces yield quality due to decreasing germination that is caused by then contamination of grain with mycotoxins produced by Fusarium fungi. The aim of this study was to characterize the resistance of naked breeding lines of oats to fungal grain infection and to contamination with T-2 and HT-2 toxins. Thirteen naked oat breeding lines and two naked varieties, Nemchinovsky 61 and Vyatskiy, as well as a husked variety Yakov, were grown under natural conditions in the Nemchinovka Federal Research Center in 2019–2020. The contamination of grain with fungi was determined by the mycological method and real-time PCR. The analysis of mycotoxins was carried out by ELISA. In oats, Alternaria (the grain infection was 15–90 %), Cochliobolus (1–33 %), Cladosporium (1–19 %), Epicoccum (0–11 %), and Fusarium (3–17 %) fungi prevailed in the grain mycobiota. The predominant Fusarium species were F. poae (its proportion among Fusarium fungi was 49–68 %) and F. langsethiae (29–28 %). The highest amounts of F. langsethiae DNA ((27.9–71.9)×10–4 pg/ng) and T-2/HT-2 toxins (790–1230 μg/kg) were found in the grain of husked oat Yakov. Among the analysed naked oat lines, the amount of F. langsethiae DNA varied in the range of (1.2–42.7)×10–4 pg/ng, and the content of T-2/HT-2 toxins was in the range of 5–229 μg/kg. Two oat breeding lines, 54h2476 and 66h2618, as well as a new variety, Azil (57h2396), can be characterized as highly resistant to infection with Fusarium fungi and contamination with mycotoxins compared to the control variety Vyatskiy.

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The current paper has presented the study results of the new hulless oat variety ‘Azil’, which was developed by the method of individual-family selection from the hybrid population ‘Krestyansky local × ZALP’. The purpose of the current study was to identify economically valuable traits, physico-biochemical indicators of the grain of the new hulless oat variety ‘Azil’. According to the length of the vegetation period, ‘Azil’ is classified as a middle maturing variety. In the State Variety Testing, the realized productivity of the variety ‘Azil’ was 5.36 t/ha. During the study, there has been found that with intensive and high-intensity cultivation in compliance with the technological methods of protection against diseases, weeds and pests, the productivity of the variety ‘Azil’ improved in relation to the basic technology from 0.75 to 1.42 t/ha (or on 12 and 23 %, respectively). The estimation of groat properties has revealed a larger protein and oil percentage in grain of the new variety than that of the hulled and hulless standard varieties ‘Yakov’ and ‘Vyatsky’ (2.2 and 0.2 % of protein; 1.3 and 0.5 % of oil) . There has been identified high loose smut resistance of the variety ‘Azil’ (up to 6.4 % damage) on artificial and natural backgrounds. There has been established a fungi composition and mycotoxins’ content in grain of the standard oat varieties ‘Yakov’ and ‘Vyatsky’, as well as 13 hulless breeding lines of the Federal Research Center “Nemchinovka”. The variety ‘Azil’ has demonstrated an increased resistance to the accumulation of T-2 toxin. Using biochemical methods there has been found heterogeneity of the new variety, consisting of two biotypes. When conducting primary seed production, there has been recommended to use the method of individual-family selection with a double estimation of the progeny and maintaining spatial isolation with other hulless oats.