Background. An extremely important task today is to develop new hulless barley cultivars, capable of yielding large and high-quality grain harvests, and introduce them into agricultural production. Objective. The purpose was to study three hulless barley cultivars ‘Omsky golozerny 2’, ‘Omsky golozerny 4’ and ‘Maysky’, developed at Omsk Agrarian Scientific Center, in order to describe their agrobiological characteristics.Materials and methods. The experimental part of the work was carried out in 2015–2017 on the experimental fields of Omsk ASC in the southern forest steppe (third crop rotation after the wheat predecessor; fourth crop after fallow). There were 4 replications on the plot of 10 m2. The seeding rate was 4 million viable seeds per 1 ha. Agricultural practice used in the experiments was conventional for West Siberia. Parameters of stability and plasticity were calculated according to Eberhart and Russell, Wricke; adaptability, according to Zhivotkov; homeostasis, according to Khangildin; stress tolerance and compensatory ability, according to Rossielle and Hemblin.Results. Many years of breeding work at Omsk ASC resulted in the development of three hulless barley cultivars: ‘Omsky golozerny 2’ (listed in the State Register of the Russian Federation for regions 9, 10 and 11), ‘Omsky golozerny 4’ (submitted for the State Crop Variety Trials in 2017), and ‘Maysky’ (not included in the State Register). The new hulless barley cultivar ‘Omsky golozerny 4’, considering its higher productivity (+1.36 g to the reference in 1000 grain weight, and +0.73 t/ha to cv. ‘Maysky’), in the yield of nutrients per area unit equaled the reference ‘Omsky golozerny 2’, but exceeded ‘Maysky’ (+47.2 kg/ha of protein, +390 kg/ha of starch, and +42.4 kg/ha of crude fat). ‘Omsky golozerny 4’ was also characterized by stability (stability = 4.8), increased compensatory ability (3.29) and adaptability (103%). There was an increase in productivity with improved growing conditions (ecological plasticity = 1.25). ‘Maysky’ had higher stress tolerance (–1.35), while the reference ‘Omsky golozerny 2’ showed increased homeostasis (0.118). Thus, ‘Omsky golozerny 4’ exceeded the previous two cultivars in adaptability and stability.

The use of new, early maturing cultivars with high productivity potential, and availability of effective herbicides have created real preconditions for the widespread introduction of soybean in the Western and Eastern Siberia. Modern cultivars should be characterized by: high and stable yields over the years in certain soil and climatic conditions of cultivation; suitability for complex mechanization of cultivation and high quality of products. Objective of the research was to evaluate a new soybean cultivar Zaryanitsa by yield and quality potential. The cultivar is included into the State Register of the Russian Federation (Patent No 9532) in 2018 in the Eastern Siberian region (11), is recommended for production in the Krasnoyarsk region. The studies we carried out in a nursery of competitive trial of the laboratory of leguminous crops breeding of the Omsk Agrarian Scientific Center from 2011 to 2019. The cultivar Zaryanitsa is early maturing (duration of the vegetative period is about 102 days), is characterized with slow growth at initial phases of development and simultaneous maturing, does not lodge and shatter, the location of the lower pods is high. These qualities make it possible to cultivate it in the harsh climatic conditions of Siberia and annually receive conditioned seeds with minimal losses during harvesting. The yield of the cultivar Zaryanitsa was noted at the standard level of the cultivar Sibirhachka (2.38 t per ha), the oil content in seeds was increased (+1.93% to st.) in average over the research period (nine years). The cultivar is characterized as stable ( < 1) of intensive type (bi > 1). In the Omsk Agrarian Research Center the cultivar Zaryanitsa is included into a scheme of crosses as a source of early maturity, stable yield, increased oil content in seeds.

The authors make a case that oat selection should have profound focus in the regions with profound contrasting weather conditions such as Western Siberia is. The adaptive variety has environmental plasticity and combines stable high productivity with grain quality. The researchers study a set of varieties of oats under the conditions of the southern forest-steppe zone of the Omsk region according to the parameters of environmental adaptability, estimated on the basis of protein concentration pro a unit of land. The experimental part of the work was carried out during 2013-2018 on the experimental fields of Omsk Research Agricultural Centre (Southern Forest Steppe, Omsk). The protein concentration in the oat grains was determined according to the Pleshkov’s method. On average, the protein concentration in chaffy oat and Hulless oat didn’t vary significantly and was equal to 408.8 and 407.4 kg/ha, respectively. Protein concentration standard of Tarsky 2, Uran, Fakel and Sibirskiy Gerkules varieties exceeded the average by 14.1-71.5 kg/ha. The authors estimated the following adaptability parameters: stress resistance (Ymin-Ymax) and compensatory capacity (Ymin+Ymax)/2 according to Rossielle, Hemblin method; ecological plasticity coefficient (O) – according to Baransky methodics; variation coefficient (V) and equation coefficient (B) – according to Armor; the level of variety stability - according to Nettevich method; coefficient of responsiveness to favorable conditions of cultivation (Kr) - by Zykin; environmental plasticity index (EPI) – by Gryaznov; coefficient of adaptability (CA) - by Zhivotkov. A comprehensive assessment of spring oats varieties, taking into account a smaller number of ranks, identified the varieties, most adapted to high protein concentration in the southern forest-steppe zone of the Omsk region: a standard chaffy variety Orion, Uran (total ranks were 37 and 36), as well as the standard of hulless oat group which is Sibirskiy golozernyy (total ranks are 72).

Background. The primary task of plant breeding is to develop and introduce into production two-row mid-season barley cultivars for feed and food purposes, capable of generating a high and high-quality grain yield. The purpose of the study is to characterize the new two-row fodder spring barley cultivar ‘Omsky 101’ (bred at Omsk Agrarian Scientific Center) according to its grain quality, yield and resistance to a set of diseases.Materials and methods. The experimental part of the work was carried out from 2013 through 2018 on the experimental fields of Omsk Agrarian Scientific Center, located in the southern forest-steppe and steppe zones. The area of the plot was 10 m2; there were 4 replications. The seeding rate was 4 million viable seeds per 1 ha. Agricultural practice in the experiment was conventional for the West Siberian region. Mathematical data processing complied with B. A. Dospekhov’s guidelines.Results. In terms of productivity, the new promising cv. ‘Omsky 101’ is a high-yielding variety; on average, over the period of research, its yield significantly exceeded the level of the reference cv. ‘Omsky 95’ both in the southern forest-steppe zone (+0.55 t/ha) and in the steppe zone (+0.38 t/ha). The increase over cv. ‘Omsky 100’ was 0.29 and 0.59 t/ha when sown over autumn plowing and fallow, respectively. When compared with the reference ‘Omsky 95’, ‘Omsky 101’ showed a gain in the weight of 1000 grains (+5.3 g), grain unit weight (+44.0 g/l), and grain uniformity (+12.4%). Also, when compared with both the reference and ‘Omsky 100’, there was an increased content of protein (+1.0 and +0.9%, respectively) and starch (+1.3 and +1.5%, respectively) in grain. During the period of study, according to the maximum damage scores with various smut species, ‘Omsky 101’ showed low rates of susceptibility to false loose smut (3.5% on average) and covered smut (5.0%), which is lower than the reference and level with cv. ‘Omsky 100’. Loose smut virulence rate was medium (23.1%), which is level with the reference but exceeds ‘Omsky 100’. Conclusion. The new promising cultivar ‘Omsky 101’ is high-yielding, of high quality, and resistant to smut species. The cultivar has been submitted to State Variety Trials in the Ural (9), West Siberian (10) and East Siberian (11) regions.

Background. The barley collection at the N.I. Vavilov AllRussian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources (VIR), being the main source of source material for breeding, is insufficiently studied under conditions of extreme continental climate. The purpose of the research was to assess the adaptability of barley cultivars held by VIR to extreme continentality.Material and methods. The research targets were 24 barley cultivars representing various breeding centers and tolerance regions of Russia. The cultivar ‘Omsky 91’ developed at Omsk Agrarian Scientific Center was used as the reference.Results and discussion. According to the genetic profiles for alleles of hordein-coding loci, provided by the Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, more than 70% of the studied barley cultivars (‘Chelyabinsky 99’, ‘Priazovsky 9’, ‘Zadel’, ‘Sokol’, ‘Zernogradsky 584’, ‘Zadonsky 8’, ‘Khadzhibey’, ‘Beatrice’, ‘Knyazhich’, ‘Zevs’, ‘Kazak’) were linear in their hordein-coding loci. The homeostasis of the cultivars, their stability indices and plasticity levels were calculated. Their intensity measures and selection differentials were determined.Conclusion. The adaptability assessment based on the sum of ranks (calculated using the abovementioned adaptability parameters) showed that the monomorphic cultivars ‘Priazovsky 9’ and ‘Chelyabinsky 99’ as well as cv. ‘Severyanin’ (not listed in the State Register for Selection Achievements) were most adapted to extreme continental climate conditions (sums of ranks ranged from 8 to 29). The adaptability of the identified cultivars was confirmed by high-yielding hybrid populations produced from crossing the selected adaptable cv. ‘Chelyabinsky 99’ with cvs. ‘Omsky 91’ and ‘Omsky 95’ released by Omsk Agrarian Scientific Center. The obtained lines demonstrated higher yields than both the mean yield of the parent cultivars (+1.20 t/ha) and the yield of the best parent cultivar (+0.76 t/ha).